January 6, 2026 • 31 mins
Gary & Shannon kick off #WhatsHappening with the day’s biggest headlines, including new polling on President Trump’s ouster of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, fresh intrigue surrounding the mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, and newly released video in the search for a suspect in the murder of an Ohio dentist and his wife.
The hour then lightens up as the hosts react to Macaulay Culkin’s three simple rules for fan interactions and swap stories about the strange thrill, and mild embarrassment, of being recognized in public. Birthday celebrations continue as Gary reveals a gift that lets his dog, Peter, pick NFL playoff winners, before the show shifts into a chilling #TrueCrimeTuesday deep dive on the University of Idaho murders, with new insight from Bryan Kohberger’s sister about troubling warning signs in the weeks before his arrest.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Yeah, just a like skeazy, slimy guy.
Like you could just tell right away that he was
going to go inno fraud the I like.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Your definition of I just don't know who he is. Yeah.
Tomorrow night, by the way, KFI is going to be
earing a KFI News special La Fires one year Later,
hosted by Michael Monks. It's going to include reports from
the KFI News team talking about the fires themselves, the aftermath,
the lasting impacts that we've seen, and of course how
southern California is doing on the road to recoverage starts
(00:40):
Tomorrow night, seven pm. Obviously live on KFI, but also
live on that iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
What else is going on?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Time for What's happening?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I tried to find you know, they always say only
forty two percent of Americans would be able to find
Venezuela on a map. Yeah, try to see if there
was a current stat that you know that number, and
there isn't. There is a funny meme going around that
says that ninety percent of people can't find Venezuela on
this map, and it's a map of Africa, so I
(01:19):
am unable to do that. But there was a poll
that came out conducted by a JL Partners found forty
three percent of registered voters were supportive of President Trump's
military action that took place to oust and capture Venezuelan
dictator Nicholas Maduro. Thirty six percent were opposed to it.
(01:39):
So that leaves what seventy nine That leaves twenty one
percent of people who either didn't understand the question, do
not know what Venezuela is, or just don't care.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
We have an update on three i AT lists.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
They're calling this a shocking admission by the CIA.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's not a shocking.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Reopened the mystery around three IAT lists. Remember if you
listen to the show, you know that these were the
aliens on the spaceship that came very close to the
Sun and to US. Now, NASA had claimed the object
is an ordinary comet, but intelligence officials have refused to
answer whether they investigated the possibility that THREEIAT list is
(02:24):
an extraterrestrial craft. This was all unearthed by a Freedom
of Information Act request, and the CIA said it could
neither deny nor confirm the existence of non exist the
existence or non existence of records regarding free iatlis.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, but that's what this is. That's what the CIA does.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
The CIA provided what is known as a Glomar response.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Never heard of that before.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's a wait for the government to say, we're not
going to tell you if we have information or not,
because even admitting that could reveal sensitive secrets. Now, you
know Auvi Lobe Harvard professor Azviy Lob who has challenged
NASA's claims that this was just a comment.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
He has pointed to at least twelve.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Strange behaviors that scientists have not been able to explain
as natural occurrences with a comment.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You guys, what this Okay, do you know what that
term means?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
The Glomar response.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's in reference to the Glomar Explorer. The Soviet submarine ships. Well, yeah, yes, yes,
we the United States, the CIA tried to recover the
Soviet submarine that went down on the Pacific, the K
one twenty nine. Guys, Hold on a second, Okay, my dad,
(03:57):
my dad worked at the West one of the Way
Coast's largest submarine bases from nineteen sixty one two three,
somewhere in there until about nineteen ninety four. So I'm
not saying that he was CIA, but this is exactly
(04:19):
the kind of thing that he would allude to having
been done while he was working there.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It would make sense that. I mean, there's a lot
of mystery surrounding your father. His name has been tossed
around in the Zodiac investigation and now the CIA as well,
with a very vague descriptor of what he did for
building submarines in the like. It's very vague. He didn't
give you a lot of details. All of this could
(04:49):
be true, by the way.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Howard Hughes.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Howard Hughes built the Hughes Glomar Explorer in nineteen seventy one.
He told the media that the ship's purpose was to
tracked manganese nodules from the ocean.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Floor or was it.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
No, there's no way, because it was a purpose built
crane ship that was supposed to lift a six hundred
and thirty ton gimble into place.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
You know what else, It could lift the K.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
One twenty nine submarine off the bottom of the ocean.
And your dad had that shed, the shed, yeah, where
he stored the K one twenty nine Soviet submarine whoa
douglam Alfa passed away Republican congressman from a Northern California
fourth generation Rice Farmer served in political office in California
(05:36):
for more than two decades. Started in the state legislature
handful of years ago, was elected to Congress.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
The first District is his district.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
The first district up in northern California, which basically goes
from just north of Sacramento all the way up to
the border, all of that.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Northeast corner of the state.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
This is a district that has long been rep Republican
and is likely to flip because of Prop fifty in
the redistricting that we're going to see.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I've seen this pop around in various different news outlets,
but I haven't done a deep dive in it. This
is the shooting deaths of a dentist and his wife
in Ohio. They've now released security video of a person
of interest in the case. Video recorded between two am
and five am in December thirtieth and an alley next
(06:28):
to the home. Their names were Spencer and Monica, in
their late thirties, and police say that they believe the
couple were killed on the top floor of their home
during that three hour window between two am and five am.
The brief video shows a person walking in the alley
wearing light colored pants and a hooded dark jacket. They
(06:48):
want to know who this person is.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Three nine millimeters shell casings were found in the home.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
The two young children were in the house unharmed. They
do not have a possible motive they're talking about. They
do not believe it was a murder suicide spencer. The
dad worked as a at a dental practice there in Athens, Ohio.
His focus was on comprehensive dentistry implant therapy. The family
(07:17):
says these people were great, extraordinary people.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Blah blah blah blah blah. But fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
A young couple shot and killed in their home, their
two young children unharmed in the same home.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
No motive. There's a business deal gone bad, something with implants.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Oh, somebody get upset a lot of money in those implants.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I don't know. Sounds like true Crime Tuesday, which we'll
be getting to.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Mcaulay culkin has rules rules.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I'm the lad that McCaulay culkin seems to be doing
all right. Because for a while there it seemed to
be touching. Oh, you know, pictures of him in New
York looking about four pounds, smoking cigarettes. But he's married,
beautiful wife, kids, seems everything's worked out.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Sounds great.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
We'll talk about his rules when it comes to being
approached in public. I think you should probably start paying
attention to some of these rules.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Why just in case, in case I see him Kulie Culkin.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah, for one thing, Oh.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Because I don't know how to behavior on celebrity.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
There's also that.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Tomorrow is what you watch in Wednesday? How did it
get to be Wednesday already? Well, it's not so, but
let us know what you're watching. I feel like I'm
in the market for a new show, evidenced by my
inquiry into a thousand pounds sisters earlier. Needs something maybe new.
(08:53):
I did pick up a new book of the book
I gave my mom and then she sent it back
to me after she finished it. Mitch Albums book. Well,
it's not new. It came out last year. It's called Twice.
I Love Everything he Wants.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I can see the cover of it. I don't think
of anything. Yeah, you like it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it's about so far a little boy, well a man,
he's a man, but he goes through his life as
somebody with the ability to relive things that happened in
his life, so you can relive them twice.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The thing is is that he has to live with
the second the second one. So say, you know, I
made a mistake saying I would do the Gary and
Channon Show. And I was like, this scary guy, like,
I should have chosen wisely, I should have chosen anything,
(09:51):
anybody other. I can't think of a name right now.
I should have chosen to do the show with Oscar. Okay, okay.
And so we go back in time and it's the
Oscar and Channon Show, right and I get into it.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm like, I made the wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I want Gary back, Like, nope, it's one time, one,
one time repeat. So he talks about in the book
about how you know he goes back and you know
if you misses an at bat and little League can
go back and he knows the pitch is coming, and
then he hits it out of the park and it's
that a lot of times. And then there's some decisions
that probably as I get further in that he was
(10:25):
he was wrong about and how that would alter the course.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I mean, just take an at bat alone.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Take an at bat when you're eleven years old alone,
you strike out, people are, oh.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
You suck, Hoffman, You're awful, blah blah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And then you're like, you know what, we weren't at
the games, but you've pretty much encapsulated it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Thanks if you hit it out of the park that day, right,
and everyone's like, you are the man Hoffman, We freaking
love you. How that changes the trajectory of your life,
just that one at bat and then and then magnify
that by other decisions or other things that happen in
your life.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
That's the butterfly effect, right.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Mcaulay Culkin no stranger to being approached in public, especially
around Christmas time, I'm sure because of home alone movies.
But a few decades after his for him the peak
of his popularity. He's forty five years old now. Mcaulay
Culkin is forty five years old now, and he says
(11:27):
he's found a way to make fan interactions a lot
less scary, and he says, I have to gird myself
for outings and so forth.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Just set certain ground rules for myself.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And he says, for example, what he asks of people
that might approach him, it's pretty simple. Don't approach me
when I'm at the dinner table. I don't like that,
And don't approach me when I'm with my kids and
I I would hope that everybody would have that sort
of mentality, right me. One thing that one thing I
(11:59):
did not expect in when I moved to Los Angeles
was the number of people that I would see wherever
covering stories or whatever, where I would go, oh, hey,
I know.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
That guy, right, that guy was in that shower.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I know, I remember her.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
She's she didn't, And.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You second guess yourself because when you think of these
people in the movies or TV, you think of them as.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So much bigger.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
They're larger than life. They're on the TV.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Screen, they're in the you know, they're in the they're
in the tube, they're in the movies.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then when you see me in real lifeel like,
is that that looks a lot like? That's that person?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And they're just people. They're just people, just people. There's
a shoe store down outside of UCLA and you're like,
what that. You don't belong here, you belong.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
On a tax It's like when we saw Share. It's
like when we saw Share Calvin at Kate. We were
at KTLA saw Share Calvin, and I'm still in my
head going, that looks like Share Calvin. Noah, couldn't be
Share Calvin.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
We're so dumb.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
She literally came outside and said I'm Share and in
my head, I'm like, that's not Share Calvin.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It is so weird. So she looks just like Shark
Calvin and even has.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Her name, like I still do that. It is so crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
He's got two kids.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Macaulay Culkin has a couple of kids with his fiance,
and he said, the third rule is definitely don't follow
me to the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, that's that's not okay.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
That's we. We You and I.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Share a small amount of recognizability in that some people
would recognize us at some listen the context of you,
for example, sidelines at Sofi Stadium, people are going to go, oh,
that's look, there she is, that's Shannon, and they're gonna
go nobody does that, Yes they do. I've seen them
(13:41):
do that, and I've heard people tell me that they've
done that.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
CEU.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
It's very weird when you're on radio because you think
that nobody but the radio is not just radio anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
But for the majority of our careers, it was just
the right. There was no social media aspect to it.
You were lucky if your picture was in the paper
for what reason, But that was it. There was a
nice anonymity to it. Yeah, I was approached, not to
I'm just saying this. I'm not saying it made okay.
New Year's Eve, I go to dinner, my wife and
(14:13):
three of our friends. The five of us are sitting
there having dinner, great dinner, two hour time limit on
the table because it's New Year's Eve, and the restaurant
they want to get people through there, so as everyone's
walking out, I'm in the back of these the line
of five of us.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I'm at the back and a woman says to me.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
She's standing by the hostess stand and her back is
to this big, tall, like wine rack of stuff, which
doesn't mean anything, but she says to me, are you Gary?
And I didn't hear the question.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
And I go, hey, how are you?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I know she said something to me, but I didn't
recognize her, and I didn't know what she said.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
And then she said it again, are you Gary?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And I said yeah, and she goes, I listen, can
She had her phone out and says, can I get
a picture with you?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Real quick? So I say, of course, yeah, she listens.
She was very nice.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And the weird part was she's in she's standing next
to the hostess stand. It's probably like eight o'clock eight
thirty something like that on New Year's Eve, so it's
full in that little anti room patio area of that,
so everybody's looking at me like should I know who
that is?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And it was funny because my wife is standing at
the door. She comes over and she says, well, let
me take a real picture for you, so it's not
just the you know, arm distance selfie. So she takes
a couple of pictures and then we walk out, and
my friends that were standing outside like where'd you go?
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Like what happened?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And I had to say like, well, she was very
nice and she asked for a picture. But then the
eyeballs of the people that are looking at you like,
I have no idea who that is?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Is?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So j hawser as great as as great as it is,
it's it's a nice ego boost.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Sure you recognize like that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
It's just nice to see someone smiling that you know,
that knows you. Yeah, it's like, it's nice and she's
smiling and wants a picture with you, as opposed to
wants to punch you in the.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Face, which just probably happened to some people, I assume, right,
But then to walk through that gauntlet of people who
are looking at right, right, who are you?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
And that was weird? That was that was that is weird.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, that's funny. That is funny.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You're like, yeah, it's just I would have made something up.
I would have been like, yeah, I'm Matt Damon or whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
I'm Matt.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I don't know. But Matt Daman probably doesn't say I'm
Matt Damon.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
He says he's Ben Affleck.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I don't know it works. All right, We've got True
Crime Tuesday. When we come back.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
A M six forty mm.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Just trying to figure out how we're going to do this.
You bought me a bunch.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Of helmets, these old school helmets that used to get
out of those coin operated machines.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, mini helmets, mini helmets from it, and you used
to have to collect and trade them all to get
yourself a full set the entire NFL.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was a feat that was hard to do.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Hard to do.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It'd be like baseball cards, right, and you put them together,
you know, maybe if you're a Giants fan, you wanted
to put together all the Giant superstars.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's hard to do.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And the helmets were a thing, and I think my
brother eventually had gotten all of the helmets. I forget
how many teams were in the league at that time.
But now, because of the Internet, you can.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Just order all of them.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, there's no hurdle you have to jump through nine
no months, no years of trying to get that Houston
oiler's helmet.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
They just appear. Yeah, that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So we thought, like, you know, all those animals that
pick winners online, why couldn't your dog, Peter pick with
the best of them.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Why not Peter's playoff picks?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And if we do a gas Fantasy six pack this
weekend for the six games for wild Card weekend, why
not let Peter take a crackhead.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Let's see how he does. I mean he might not.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
He may be as good as I am at picking games,
which is not very well.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Listen, don't be down on yourself.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
But maybe he's a savant.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Which would be really awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, what a great I know there's something in there
about that guy.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I mean, it could be Peter's purpose, his why.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Peter's purpose sounds really cool, So that would be a
good book, children's book. Peter's purpose. It's just him playing
with a bunch.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Of many helmety helments.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It's time for True Crime Tuesday. The story is true,
that's true. No, it sounds made up.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Parry and Shannon.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So rarely do we hear from the family members of
people who commit horrific crimes, and the questions are always there,
what did they know? A lot of recent attention has
been on the siblings of the Reiner kid who killed
his parents. What's it like? Do you know growing up
(19:24):
that your brother is a monster? Are there signs? And
rarely do we get anyone talking about that until now.
Brian Coburger is the guy who stabbed and killed four
college students at the University of Idaho, and his sister
(19:48):
is talking about what it was like growing up with
Brian Coburger, and what it was like when she found
out the news of the murders. And in fact, that's
how this article starts. As the news had landed that
four college students were stabbed to death at a house
near the University of Idaho. Her name is Mel Mel Coburger.
(20:14):
Mel was preparing to start a new job as wait
for it, a mental health therapist in New Jersey, and
when she hears this, she goes, oh my god, she said,
there was a sense of alarm. She knew that her Brian,
her brother Brian, lived just fifteen minutes away from the.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Scene of this house, of this slaughter of these students.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
There were no suspects, and she knew that her brother
liked to go for late night jogs, so she said
to him. She remembers telling her brother, Brian Coburger, Brian,
you're running outside in this psycho killers on the loose,
be careful. He thanked her for checking in on him
and told her, don't worry, I'll stay safe.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So remember December of that year, he drives across country,
goes back to his parents' house in Pennsylvania for the holidays,
and late December, mel Cooburger gets a call from her
other sister, or from her sister, I should say, Amanda,
that law enforcement burst into the house, FBI, local cops,
everybody and arrested Brian Coburger for those four murders. And
(21:23):
she said that she wondered if it was a prank
at first, and then this sense of nausea took over.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, I'm with the FBI. Brian's been arrested. And she said,
I'm like, for what the Idaho murders she was told,
And that's I mean, I feel that sense of nausea
just hearing that that your brother is responsible for this awful, heinous,
the most heinous quad murder that you had ever heard of,
(21:51):
probably in your entire life.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and remember what comes next is the descriptions of
this guy, his personality, his in fact stuation with crime
and criminology, and that's what he was studying, but also
this very unaffected, emotionless person.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
For the past three years, his family has kept quiet,
They have avoided interviews. He has pleaded guilty, if you
don't remember, accepted for life sentences. But she and she
the sister mal is still worried that she may say
something that's going to further traumatize her family, the family
of the parents, and the families of all the four killed,
(22:34):
and she knows her family's challenges with Brian through the
years cannot compare to what those families have endured, So
she doesn't want to make it sound like that at all.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
But she does get into some.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Of the specifics that they grew up in the Poconos.
Home life centered on family readings of books like Little
House on the Prairie, lessons rooted in Mom's Catholic upbringing.
They had her and her brother had been, you know,
(23:08):
told about the values of loyalty, self reliance, putting the
needs of others ahead of their own. She says, some
of our fondest childhood memories were the nights when the parents,
Marian and Michael, would order takeout and they would lay
on blankets out on the deck. They look up at
the stars. They talk about astronomy and wonders of the world.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
There was a lot that goes into the questions around
the family when the family. If the family ever had
questions about whether Brian was responsible for it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It seems like things started to arrive in adolescence. Like
most issues and we'll get to that when we come back.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Gary Shannon will continue True Crime Tuesday.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
We are in the middle of True Crime Tuesday. You
remember Brian Cooberger, the one who was into criminology and
a PhD student in Idaho when he broke into that
home and murdered those four students there University of Idaho.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Awful, awful occurrence.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He has, by the way, pleaded guilty, accepted for life sentences.
And now his sister is actually talking about her reaction
to what happened and the bombshell that when she heard
the news like we all did, and remember there was
quite some time we heard the news for University of
Idaho students slaughtered in their home and then nothing. There
(24:41):
was a big vacuum and everyone was feeling it with
what the hell happened?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Who was it, why, and the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And she knew that her brother lived about fifteen minutes
away and actually told him, you know, I know, you
go on night jogs, be careful, there's a psycho out there.
I mean, that's how off guard she was caught by
the fact that it was her brother that.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Carried out unthinkable violence like this.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
She described this little house on the prairie style life
that they had. Mom's Catholic upbringing had an impact when
they grew up in the Pocono's friends described how Brian
was a bit overweight as a teenager and had sort
of a standoffish personality that the family now says was
probably a result of his autism.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
They say he.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Endured persistent bullying that he wrote online during those years
of having no emotion, little remorse, feeling as if he
were quoting here an organic sack of meat with no
self worth. And then came the heroin problem.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I guess at one point he had stolen his sister
Mel's phone and sold it at a mall to buy
more drugs. And when he did that, that's when the
parents that crossed the line. They called the police because
Mel says they were all worried that he was on
a path to early Yeah, I guess one of his
friends had died and there's similar circumstances.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But then came treatment, and they said after he went
to treatment, he appeared to be on a better trajectory.
That she and her brother both shared an interest in
crime psychology. She was, as we mentioned earlier, pursuing a
career in mental health therapy at the same time he
started talking about a career in policing. He went on
(26:26):
to study psychology in Eastern Pennsylvania before getting into the
PhD program in criminology at Washington State.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
She said, we're also proud of.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Him because he had overcome so much, And of course
you would be. Here's a kid who struggled as an
overweight teenager. He was bullied all the time. He picks
up heroin and goes to a treatment center and then
suddenly is an academic.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Wow. Best case scenario, right.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
She did say that he was socially awkward. She did
say that he could be abrasive at times. I mean,
this is don't forget the dynamics of a brother's relationship
can often come with that, regardless of the personalities. And
she said they did often argue, but that she never
saw him violent, and once she actually was the one
violent she tried to force him out of the house
(27:14):
during an argument. He de escalated the situation by just
holding her hands back, so that idea that he was
responsible for this horrific, barbaric, gruesome crime was something that
struck the family and they still have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So the murders happened and they still didn't have any
one for it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
He went home for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Eventually caught up with him at the family home, but
before they did family had gotten there for Christmas. She
remembered being thrilled to see her brother back home, giving
him a big hug. He apparently had started a strict diet,
so his mother had made him vegan cookies for Christmas.
They played TV party games. One night, mel the sister,
(28:03):
was cleaning up the kitchen and a piece of foil
cut her finger, and the brother, Brian Koburger, was too
super grossed out at the sight of blood, but then
helped her clean it up and covered it with a bandage.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
What just as a guy who created a blood bath
in that house. She said that in that time are
just a couple of weeks between the murders and when
he was arrested. She recalls him only briefly mentioning the murders,
just simply saying that they're still looking for the killer
at that point.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
In fact, when they released the car they were looking for,
when they asked the public for help, and they described
a white Hyun Day of in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen,
the sister Mel knew her brother had driven white Alantra
(29:01):
back from school, and she wondered, Huh, they must be
looking for the same.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Model, but then realize, oh, no, they're looking twenty eleven
to twenty thirteen. He's driving a twenty fifteen model.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
So weird that you would just be like, oh, what
a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
What she didn't know, what nobody in the family knew
was that they had identified him as the primary suspect
before that, so they were already surveilling the house. So
it was December thirtieth, twenty twenty two, Brian Koberger and
his parents were the only three in the house. That's
when the police came in, guns drawn, put him in handcuffs.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Listen to this.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
She says her mom has been praying daily for the
families of the victims, and that she Mel has put
the names of the victims and their birthdays into her
digital calendar so she gets reminders about them. She says,
the idea is making me so emotional. I can barely
speak to you about it.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
She just she goes on and talks about life with
her brother in the prison in prison and will be
forever for consecutive life sentences, I believe. And they talk
about including him and holidays and things like that, and
they try to do regular calls. Oh my god, I
can't but just the wow. Yeah, that guy destroys those
(30:25):
four lives, right.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
You don't stop loving your son or your brother.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Well, he destroys those four lives, right, Think of how
many were There's just there three other people in the house.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
That's four lives.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Everyone who knew those people, their lives are altered forever.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The crime scene investigators, I mean, the people walked into
that scene before it had.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
People's trajectory that didn't go to the University of Idaho
because of this or you know. I mean, it's just
it's it's not quantifiable how much damage something like this
does to how many people.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
You just don't ever know. Mickey Rourke, man.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think my grandma had that shirt, and.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, poor dog's seen some things.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yes, what ye? John Cobalt shows up next. We'll see
you tomorrow. Stay dry.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Everybody you've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show,
you can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Yeah, just a like skeazy, slimy guy.
Like you could just tell right away that he was
going to go inno fraud the I like.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Your definition of I just don't know who he is. Yeah.
Tomorrow night, by the way, KFI is going to be
earing a KFI News special La Fires one year Later,
hosted by Michael Monks. It's going to include reports from
the KFI News team talking about the fires themselves, the aftermath,
the lasting impacts that we've seen, and of course how
southern California is doing on the road to recoverage starts
(00:40):
Tomorrow night, seven pm. Obviously live on KFI, but also
live on that iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
What else is going on?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Time for What's happening?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I tried to find you know, they always say only
forty two percent of Americans would be able to find
Venezuela on a map. Yeah, try to see if there
was a current stat that you know that number, and
there isn't. There is a funny meme going around that
says that ninety percent of people can't find Venezuela on
this map, and it's a map of Africa, so I
(01:19):
am unable to do that. But there was a poll
that came out conducted by a JL Partners found forty
three percent of registered voters were supportive of President Trump's
military action that took place to oust and capture Venezuelan
dictator Nicholas Maduro. Thirty six percent were opposed to it.
(01:39):
So that leaves what seventy nine That leaves twenty one
percent of people who either didn't understand the question, do
not know what Venezuela is, or just don't care.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
We have an update on three i AT lists.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
They're calling this a shocking admission by the CIA.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
It's not a shocking.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Reopened the mystery around three IAT lists. Remember if you
listen to the show, you know that these were the
aliens on the spaceship that came very close to the
Sun and to US. Now, NASA had claimed the object
is an ordinary comet, but intelligence officials have refused to
answer whether they investigated the possibility that THREEIAT list is
(02:24):
an extraterrestrial craft. This was all unearthed by a Freedom
of Information Act request, and the CIA said it could
neither deny nor confirm the existence of non exist the
existence or non existence of records regarding free iatlis.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, but that's what this is. That's what the CIA does.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
The CIA provided what is known as a Glomar response.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Never heard of that before.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
It's a wait for the government to say, we're not
going to tell you if we have information or not,
because even admitting that could reveal sensitive secrets. Now, you
know Auvi Lobe Harvard professor Azviy Lob who has challenged
NASA's claims that this was just a comment.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
He has pointed to at least twelve.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Strange behaviors that scientists have not been able to explain
as natural occurrences with a comment.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
You guys, what this Okay, do you know what that
term means?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
The Glomar response.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's in reference to the Glomar Explorer. The Soviet submarine ships. Well, yeah, yes, yes,
we the United States, the CIA tried to recover the
Soviet submarine that went down on the Pacific, the K
one twenty nine. Guys, Hold on a second, Okay, my dad,
(03:57):
my dad worked at the West one of the Way
Coast's largest submarine bases from nineteen sixty one two three,
somewhere in there until about nineteen ninety four. So I'm
not saying that he was CIA, but this is exactly
(04:19):
the kind of thing that he would allude to having
been done while he was working there.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It would make sense that. I mean, there's a lot
of mystery surrounding your father. His name has been tossed
around in the Zodiac investigation and now the CIA as well,
with a very vague descriptor of what he did for
building submarines in the like. It's very vague. He didn't
give you a lot of details. All of this could
(04:49):
be true, by the way.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Howard Hughes.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Howard Hughes built the Hughes Glomar Explorer in nineteen seventy one.
He told the media that the ship's purpose was to
tracked manganese nodules from the ocean.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Floor or was it.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
No, there's no way, because it was a purpose built
crane ship that was supposed to lift a six hundred
and thirty ton gimble into place.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
You know what else, It could lift the K.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
One twenty nine submarine off the bottom of the ocean.
And your dad had that shed, the shed, yeah, where
he stored the K one twenty nine Soviet submarine whoa
douglam Alfa passed away Republican congressman from a Northern California
fourth generation Rice Farmer served in political office in California
(05:36):
for more than two decades. Started in the state legislature
handful of years ago, was elected to Congress.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
The first District is his district.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
The first district up in northern California, which basically goes
from just north of Sacramento all the way up to
the border, all of that.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Northeast corner of the state.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
This is a district that has long been rep Republican
and is likely to flip because of Prop fifty in
the redistricting that we're going to see.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I've seen this pop around in various different news outlets,
but I haven't done a deep dive in it. This
is the shooting deaths of a dentist and his wife
in Ohio. They've now released security video of a person
of interest in the case. Video recorded between two am
and five am in December thirtieth and an alley next
(06:28):
to the home. Their names were Spencer and Monica, in
their late thirties, and police say that they believe the
couple were killed on the top floor of their home
during that three hour window between two am and five am.
The brief video shows a person walking in the alley
wearing light colored pants and a hooded dark jacket. They
(06:48):
want to know who this person is.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Three nine millimeters shell casings were found in the home.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
The two young children were in the house unharmed. They
do not have a possible motive they're talking about. They
do not believe it was a murder suicide spencer. The
dad worked as a at a dental practice there in Athens, Ohio.
His focus was on comprehensive dentistry implant therapy. The family
(07:17):
says these people were great, extraordinary people.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Blah blah blah blah blah. But fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
A young couple shot and killed in their home, their
two young children unharmed in the same home.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
No motive. There's a business deal gone bad, something with implants.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Oh, somebody get upset a lot of money in those implants.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I don't know. Sounds like true Crime Tuesday, which we'll
be getting to.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Mcaulay culkin has rules rules.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I'm the lad that McCaulay culkin seems to be doing
all right. Because for a while there it seemed to
be touching. Oh, you know, pictures of him in New
York looking about four pounds, smoking cigarettes. But he's married,
beautiful wife, kids, seems everything's worked out.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Sounds great.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
We'll talk about his rules when it comes to being
approached in public. I think you should probably start paying
attention to some of these rules.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Why just in case, in case I see him Kulie Culkin.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah, for one thing, Oh.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Because I don't know how to behavior on celebrity.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
There's also that.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Tomorrow is what you watch in Wednesday? How did it
get to be Wednesday already? Well, it's not so, but
let us know what you're watching. I feel like I'm
in the market for a new show, evidenced by my
inquiry into a thousand pounds sisters earlier. Needs something maybe new.
(08:53):
I did pick up a new book of the book
I gave my mom and then she sent it back
to me after she finished it. Mitch Albums book. Well,
it's not new. It came out last year. It's called Twice.
I Love Everything he Wants.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I can see the cover of it. I don't think
of anything. Yeah, you like it.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it's about so far a little boy, well a man,
he's a man, but he goes through his life as
somebody with the ability to relive things that happened in
his life, so you can relive them twice.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The thing is is that he has to live with
the second the second one. So say, you know, I
made a mistake saying I would do the Gary and
Channon Show. And I was like, this scary guy, like,
I should have chosen wisely, I should have chosen anything,
(09:51):
anybody other. I can't think of a name right now.
I should have chosen to do the show with Oscar. Okay, okay.
And so we go back in time and it's the
Oscar and Channon Show, right and I get into it.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I'm like, I made the wrong decision.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I want Gary back, Like, nope, it's one time, one,
one time repeat. So he talks about in the book
about how you know he goes back and you know
if you misses an at bat and little League can
go back and he knows the pitch is coming, and
then he hits it out of the park and it's
that a lot of times. And then there's some decisions
that probably as I get further in that he was
(10:25):
he was wrong about and how that would alter the course.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I mean, just take an at bat alone.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Take an at bat when you're eleven years old alone,
you strike out, people are, oh.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
You suck, Hoffman, You're awful, blah blah.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And then you're like, you know what, we weren't at
the games, but you've pretty much encapsulated it.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Thanks if you hit it out of the park that day, right,
and everyone's like, you are the man Hoffman, We freaking
love you. How that changes the trajectory of your life,
just that one at bat and then and then magnify
that by other decisions or other things that happen in
your life.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
That's the butterfly effect, right.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Mcaulay Culkin no stranger to being approached in public, especially
around Christmas time, I'm sure because of home alone movies.
But a few decades after his for him the peak
of his popularity. He's forty five years old now. Mcaulay
Culkin is forty five years old now, and he says
(11:27):
he's found a way to make fan interactions a lot
less scary, and he says, I have to gird myself
for outings and so forth.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Just set certain ground rules for myself.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
And he says, for example, what he asks of people
that might approach him, it's pretty simple. Don't approach me
when I'm at the dinner table. I don't like that,
And don't approach me when I'm with my kids and
I I would hope that everybody would have that sort
of mentality, right me. One thing that one thing I
(11:59):
did not expect in when I moved to Los Angeles
was the number of people that I would see wherever
covering stories or whatever, where I would go, oh, hey,
I know.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
That guy, right, that guy was in that shower.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I know, I remember her.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
She's she didn't, And.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You second guess yourself because when you think of these
people in the movies or TV, you think of them as.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So much bigger.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, right, Like.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
They're larger than life. They're on the TV.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Screen, they're in the you know, they're in the they're
in the tube, they're in the movies.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then when you see me in real lifeel like,
is that that looks a lot like? That's that person?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And they're just people. They're just people, just people. There's
a shoe store down outside of UCLA and you're like,
what that. You don't belong here, you belong.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
On a tax It's like when we saw Share. It's
like when we saw Share Calvin at Kate. We were
at KTLA saw Share Calvin, and I'm still in my
head going, that looks like Share Calvin. Noah, couldn't be
Share Calvin.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
We're so dumb.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
She literally came outside and said I'm Share and in
my head, I'm like, that's not Share Calvin.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It is so weird. So she looks just like Shark
Calvin and even has.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Her name, like I still do that. It is so crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
He's got two kids.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Macaulay Culkin has a couple of kids with his fiance,
and he said, the third rule is definitely don't follow
me to the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, that's that's not okay.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
That's we. We You and I.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Share a small amount of recognizability in that some people
would recognize us at some listen the context of you,
for example, sidelines at Sofi Stadium, people are going to go, oh,
that's look, there she is, that's Shannon, and they're gonna
go nobody does that, Yes they do. I've seen them
(13:41):
do that, and I've heard people tell me that they've
done that.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
CEU.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
It's very weird when you're on radio because you think
that nobody but the radio is not just radio anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
But for the majority of our careers, it was just
the right. There was no social media aspect to it.
You were lucky if your picture was in the paper
for what reason, But that was it. There was a
nice anonymity to it. Yeah, I was approached, not to
I'm just saying this. I'm not saying it made okay.
New Year's Eve, I go to dinner, my wife and
(14:13):
three of our friends. The five of us are sitting
there having dinner, great dinner, two hour time limit on
the table because it's New Year's Eve, and the restaurant
they want to get people through there, so as everyone's
walking out, I'm in the back of these the line
of five of us.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I'm at the back and a woman says to me.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
She's standing by the hostess stand and her back is
to this big, tall, like wine rack of stuff, which
doesn't mean anything, but she says to me, are you Gary?
And I didn't hear the question.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
And I go, hey, how are you?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She?
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I know she said something to me, but I didn't
recognize her, and I didn't know what she said.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
And then she said it again, are you Gary?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
And I said yeah, and she goes, I listen, can
She had her phone out and says, can I get
a picture with you?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Real quick? So I say, of course, yeah, she listens.
She was very nice.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And the weird part was she's in she's standing next
to the hostess stand. It's probably like eight o'clock eight
thirty something like that on New Year's Eve, so it's
full in that little anti room patio area of that,
so everybody's looking at me like should I know who
that is?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And it was funny because my wife is standing at
the door. She comes over and she says, well, let
me take a real picture for you, so it's not
just the you know, arm distance selfie. So she takes
a couple of pictures and then we walk out, and
my friends that were standing outside like where'd you go?
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Like what happened?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And I had to say like, well, she was very
nice and she asked for a picture. But then the
eyeballs of the people that are looking at you like,
I have no idea who that is?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Is?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So j hawser as great as as great as it is,
it's it's a nice ego boost.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Sure you recognize like that.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
It's just nice to see someone smiling that you know,
that knows you. Yeah, it's like, it's nice and she's
smiling and wants a picture with you, as opposed to
wants to punch you in the.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Face, which just probably happened to some people, I assume, right,
But then to walk through that gauntlet of people who
are looking at right, right, who are you?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
And that was weird? That was that was that is weird.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Yeah, that's funny. That is funny.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You're like, yeah, it's just I would have made something up.
I would have been like, yeah, I'm Matt Damon or whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
I'm Matt.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I don't know. But Matt Daman probably doesn't say I'm
Matt Damon.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
He says he's Ben Affleck.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I don't know it works. All right, We've got True
Crime Tuesday. When we come back.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
A M six forty mm.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Just trying to figure out how we're going to do this.
You bought me a bunch.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Of helmets, these old school helmets that used to get
out of those coin operated machines.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, mini helmets, mini helmets from it, and you used
to have to collect and trade them all to get
yourself a full set the entire NFL.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was a feat that was hard to do.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Hard to do.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
It'd be like baseball cards, right, and you put them together,
you know, maybe if you're a Giants fan, you wanted
to put together all the Giant superstars.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's hard to do.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And the helmets were a thing, and I think my
brother eventually had gotten all of the helmets. I forget
how many teams were in the league at that time.
But now, because of the Internet, you can.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Just order all of them.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, there's no hurdle you have to jump through nine
no months, no years of trying to get that Houston
oiler's helmet.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
They just appear. Yeah, that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
So we thought, like, you know, all those animals that
pick winners online, why couldn't your dog, Peter pick with
the best of them.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Why not Peter's playoff picks?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And if we do a gas Fantasy six pack this
weekend for the six games for wild Card weekend, why
not let Peter take a crackhead.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Let's see how he does. I mean he might not.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
He may be as good as I am at picking games,
which is not very well.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Listen, don't be down on yourself.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
But maybe he's a savant.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Which would be really awesome.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, what a great I know there's something in there
about that guy.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I mean, it could be Peter's purpose, his why.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Peter's purpose sounds really cool, So that would be a
good book, children's book. Peter's purpose. It's just him playing
with a bunch.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Of many helmety helments.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It's time for True Crime Tuesday. The story is true,
that's true. No, it sounds made up.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Parry and Shannon.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So rarely do we hear from the family members of
people who commit horrific crimes, and the questions are always there,
what did they know? A lot of recent attention has
been on the siblings of the Reiner kid who killed
his parents. What's it like? Do you know growing up
(19:24):
that your brother is a monster? Are there signs? And
rarely do we get anyone talking about that until now.
Brian Coburger is the guy who stabbed and killed four
college students at the University of Idaho, and his sister
(19:48):
is talking about what it was like growing up with
Brian Coburger, and what it was like when she found
out the news of the murders. And in fact, that's
how this article starts. As the news had landed that
four college students were stabbed to death at a house
near the University of Idaho. Her name is Mel Mel Coburger.
(20:14):
Mel was preparing to start a new job as wait
for it, a mental health therapist in New Jersey, and
when she hears this, she goes, oh my god, she said,
there was a sense of alarm. She knew that her Brian,
her brother Brian, lived just fifteen minutes away from the.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Scene of this house, of this slaughter of these students.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
There were no suspects, and she knew that her brother
liked to go for late night jogs, so she said
to him. She remembers telling her brother, Brian Coburger, Brian,
you're running outside in this psycho killers on the loose,
be careful. He thanked her for checking in on him
and told her, don't worry, I'll stay safe.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So remember December of that year, he drives across country,
goes back to his parents' house in Pennsylvania for the holidays,
and late December, mel Cooburger gets a call from her
other sister, or from her sister, I should say, Amanda,
that law enforcement burst into the house, FBI, local cops,
everybody and arrested Brian Coburger for those four murders. And
(21:23):
she said that she wondered if it was a prank
at first, and then this sense of nausea took over.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, I'm with the FBI. Brian's been arrested. And she said,
I'm like, for what the Idaho murders she was told,
And that's I mean, I feel that sense of nausea
just hearing that that your brother is responsible for this awful, heinous,
the most heinous quad murder that you had ever heard of,
(21:51):
probably in your entire life.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, and remember what comes next is the descriptions of
this guy, his personality, his in fact stuation with crime
and criminology, and that's what he was studying, but also
this very unaffected, emotionless person.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
For the past three years, his family has kept quiet,
They have avoided interviews. He has pleaded guilty, if you
don't remember, accepted for life sentences. But she and she
the sister mal is still worried that she may say
something that's going to further traumatize her family, the family
of the parents, and the families of all the four killed,
(22:34):
and she knows her family's challenges with Brian through the
years cannot compare to what those families have endured, So
she doesn't want to make it sound like that at all.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
But she does get into some.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Of the specifics that they grew up in the Poconos.
Home life centered on family readings of books like Little
House on the Prairie, lessons rooted in Mom's Catholic upbringing.
They had her and her brother had been, you know,
(23:08):
told about the values of loyalty, self reliance, putting the
needs of others ahead of their own. She says, some
of our fondest childhood memories were the nights when the parents,
Marian and Michael, would order takeout and they would lay
on blankets out on the deck. They look up at
the stars. They talk about astronomy and wonders of the world.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
There was a lot that goes into the questions around
the family when the family. If the family ever had
questions about whether Brian was responsible for it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It seems like things started to arrive in adolescence. Like
most issues and we'll get to that when we come back.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
Gary Shannon will continue True Crime Tuesday.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
We are in the middle of True Crime Tuesday. You
remember Brian Cooberger, the one who was into criminology and
a PhD student in Idaho when he broke into that
home and murdered those four students there University of Idaho.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Awful, awful occurrence.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
He has, by the way, pleaded guilty, accepted for life sentences.
And now his sister is actually talking about her reaction
to what happened and the bombshell that when she heard
the news like we all did, and remember there was
quite some time we heard the news for University of
Idaho students slaughtered in their home and then nothing. There
(24:41):
was a big vacuum and everyone was feeling it with
what the hell happened?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Who was it, why, and the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And she knew that her brother lived about fifteen minutes
away and actually told him, you know, I know, you
go on night jogs, be careful, there's a psycho out there.
I mean, that's how off guard she was caught by
the fact that it was her brother that.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Carried out unthinkable violence like this.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
She described this little house on the prairie style life
that they had. Mom's Catholic upbringing had an impact when
they grew up in the Pocono's friends described how Brian
was a bit overweight as a teenager and had sort
of a standoffish personality that the family now says was
probably a result of his autism.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
They say he.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Endured persistent bullying that he wrote online during those years
of having no emotion, little remorse, feeling as if he
were quoting here an organic sack of meat with no
self worth. And then came the heroin problem.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I guess at one point he had stolen his sister
Mel's phone and sold it at a mall to buy
more drugs. And when he did that, that's when the
parents that crossed the line. They called the police because
Mel says they were all worried that he was on
a path to early Yeah, I guess one of his
friends had died and there's similar circumstances.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
But then came treatment, and they said after he went
to treatment, he appeared to be on a better trajectory.
That she and her brother both shared an interest in
crime psychology. She was, as we mentioned earlier, pursuing a
career in mental health therapy at the same time he
started talking about a career in policing. He went on
(26:26):
to study psychology in Eastern Pennsylvania before getting into the
PhD program in criminology at Washington State.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
She said, we're also proud of.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Him because he had overcome so much, And of course
you would be. Here's a kid who struggled as an
overweight teenager. He was bullied all the time. He picks
up heroin and goes to a treatment center and then
suddenly is an academic.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Wow. Best case scenario, right.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
She did say that he was socially awkward. She did
say that he could be abrasive at times. I mean,
this is don't forget the dynamics of a brother's relationship
can often come with that, regardless of the personalities. And
she said they did often argue, but that she never
saw him violent, and once she actually was the one
violent she tried to force him out of the house
(27:14):
during an argument. He de escalated the situation by just
holding her hands back, so that idea that he was
responsible for this horrific, barbaric, gruesome crime was something that
struck the family and they still have to deal with.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
So the murders happened and they still didn't have any
one for it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
He went home for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Eventually caught up with him at the family home, but
before they did family had gotten there for Christmas. She
remembered being thrilled to see her brother back home, giving
him a big hug. He apparently had started a strict diet,
so his mother had made him vegan cookies for Christmas.
They played TV party games. One night, mel the sister,
(28:03):
was cleaning up the kitchen and a piece of foil
cut her finger, and the brother, Brian Koburger, was too
super grossed out at the sight of blood, but then
helped her clean it up and covered it with a bandage.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
What just as a guy who created a blood bath
in that house. She said that in that time are
just a couple of weeks between the murders and when
he was arrested. She recalls him only briefly mentioning the murders,
just simply saying that they're still looking for the killer
at that point.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
In fact, when they released the car they were looking for,
when they asked the public for help, and they described
a white Hyun Day of in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen,
the sister Mel knew her brother had driven white Alantra
(29:01):
back from school, and she wondered, Huh, they must be
looking for the same.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Model, but then realize, oh, no, they're looking twenty eleven
to twenty thirteen. He's driving a twenty fifteen model.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
So weird that you would just be like, oh, what
a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
What she didn't know, what nobody in the family knew
was that they had identified him as the primary suspect
before that, so they were already surveilling the house. So
it was December thirtieth, twenty twenty two, Brian Koberger and
his parents were the only three in the house. That's
when the police came in, guns drawn, put him in handcuffs.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Listen to this.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
She says her mom has been praying daily for the
families of the victims, and that she Mel has put
the names of the victims and their birthdays into her
digital calendar so she gets reminders about them. She says,
the idea is making me so emotional. I can barely
speak to you about it.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
She just she goes on and talks about life with
her brother in the prison in prison and will be
forever for consecutive life sentences, I believe. And they talk
about including him and holidays and things like that, and
they try to do regular calls. Oh my god, I
can't but just the wow. Yeah, that guy destroys those
(30:25):
four lives, right.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
You don't stop loving your son or your brother.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Well, he destroys those four lives, right, Think of how
many were There's just there three other people in the house.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
That's four lives.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Everyone who knew those people, their lives are altered forever.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
The crime scene investigators, I mean, the people walked into
that scene before it had.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
People's trajectory that didn't go to the University of Idaho
because of this or you know. I mean, it's just
it's it's not quantifiable how much damage something like this
does to how many people.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
You just don't ever know. Mickey Rourke, man.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think my grandma had that shirt, and.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, poor dog's seen some things.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yes, what ye? John Cobalt shows up next. We'll see
you tomorrow. Stay dry.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Everybody you've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show,
you can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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