Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Come on a ride along with a Veteran Homicide Detective as the twists and turns of the job suddenly end his career and nearly his life; discover how something wonderful is born out of the Darkness. Embark on the journey from helping people on their worst days, to bringing life, excitement and smiles on their best days.
Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Murders in Moscow: Case Review Inside the Mind of a Homicide Detective
Detective Aaron offers unique insights into the Moscow, Idaho college murders case by examining evidence, investigation techniques, and the psychology of trauma responses.
• Former homicide detective's perspective on the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students
• Investigation followed digital evidence, cell phone records, and crucial DNA from the knife sheath
• Discussion on why one roommate didn't immediately call 911 after seeing a mask-wearing intruder
• Explanation of trauma responses and how they can affect perceptions during traumatic events
• Analysis of how Bryan Kohberger's cell phone going dark during the murder timeframe became key evidence
• Detailed breakdown of how investigators used DNA from trash pulls to link the suspect
• Examination of how media leaks and unsealed documents complicated the prosecution
• Discussion about why prosecutors accepted Kohberger's guilty plea rather than pursuing the death penalty
• Insight into why plea deals sometimes represent true justice for victims' families
• Explanation of how appeals processes in death penalty cases can traumatize families for decades
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast. My name is Aaron, I'm your host and you guys are in for another awesome show. Tonight's show is going to be a little bit different. I've never done a show like this on the podcast before and I don't plan on making this part of the normal routine, but I do believe that I have some stuff that I can offer. I have some insight that I can offer on a case, on a situation, and I want to review that from the 30,000 foot view, if you will. I'm not going to get into the minutia or the details of lab reports or criminal defense statements or prosecution statements. I want to keep it more broad brush, broad stroked. But I also think that I come to this with the experience of being a former homicide detective, having done many, many murders and very complex murders, and I think that I can offer some insight into this case that your standard journalist, reporter, lay person, facebook, instagram commenter, newspaper commenter, people that are, you know, sometimes mouth breathers and they're just, you know can't connect the dots. I think I have a little bit more insight than these folks do. So I want to take some time and I want to talk about the murder of the four Idaho college students that occurred back on November 13th of 2022. College students that occurred back on November 13th of 2022. These four college students, three young ladies and a young man, were murdered in their home in Moscow, idaho, as they slept at night. The victims in this case are Kaylee, madison, zaina and Ethan, and the victims in this case did nothing to deserve what they got. There was also two other people in the house that night, two other roommates that survived this incident, and we're also going to refer to them as victims in this case. Something this impactful. Whether you're in the home, within the four walls and confines of that house, or your neighboring house, or even in the community, I think you can consider yourself a victim of this tragic set of circumstances. A situation like this will hold the town and its people captive almost indefinitely at times, but definitely until a perpetrator is caught. In a stranger criminal encounter like this, where a stranger breaks into the home in the middle of the night and murders four people, as you can well imagine, that is enough to grip the inner, everything that you have and shake it to the core, and that's what occurred in this case. The conscience of this community was shocked as a result of this situation.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about this from a couple different ways, and I'm going to go through this investigation and then I'm going to come back and talk about some of the hurdles or the problems, or even some of the ways that the victims in this case, the living victims were almost crucified at times by the media. They were crucified by those mouth breathers that are making comments on the social media or the media platforms that don't truly understand human psychology, criminal investigations or anything to that effect. So here's what I want to talk about. We're going to start on the incident. We're going to break down the night of then we're going to go back and we're going to talk about the investigative steps that have to go into that investigation what people are looking for, what law enforcement is looking for, different ways they can do it, things that they're finding, things that they're not finding, that they should and, like I've said before, often the things you can't find speak a louder volume than the things that you do find. Then we're going to come back and finally, we're going to talk about the prosecution's case moving forward. Had this went to trial? So let's break this down.
Speaker 1:So on November 13th of 2022, as that early morning hours came to an end at about 2 am, several of these roommates returned back to this house at 1122 King Road in Moscow, idaho. This house was just off the campus. This is a college home. It is known to be a party house. It is known to be a host for parties, as we learned through the investigation that there have often been times parties at this house where the owners of the house or the tenants of the house weren't even present. It was just a place to facilitate these parties, and that is not a bad thing. We're not blaming victims as a result of that. These are college kids. We got to keep that in mind. These are college kids there to get an education, but also to have fun, and we all know partying is a part of that college experience.
Speaker 1:Shortly after 4 am, there are six people in this house. Four of the six find themselves asleep. Two of them are not. Two of them are in their rooms, not asleep. But in that process, several of the people in the house have been drinking that night and shortly after 4 am, one of the young ladies wakes up to hear sounds of a commotion within the house. This is a three-story house. She is on one of the lower stories. As she comes out and opens up the door of her room, she sees a stranger in her house. This man is dressed in black, he has a black balaclava on his face and she recognized. He has very bushy eyebrows. He was carrying something in his hand and he made his way through the house and out of the sliding door, out of the kitchen area.
Speaker 1:She returned to her room. According to her statements, she was filled with fear. She was scared, she was terrified, didn't know what to do. She went to her room, did not go check to see if anything had happened, but instead exchanged text messages with one of the other people in the house, the only other survivor. They exchanged text messages for a period of time. They were both scared, both didn't know what to do. They went to sleep. They did not call 9-1-1. They did not go check on their friends. We're going to come back to that. Let's put a pin in that. And we're going to come back to that because some of you may be thinking why wouldn't they call 9-1-1 right now? Why wouldn't they pick up the phone if there was a stranger in the house? I couldn't imagine a stranger being in my house and me not picking up the phone to call 911. We're going to come back to that.
Speaker 1:Those two, at some point throughout the night, get up and they make their way through the house and they see their roommates laying on the floor and they assume that they're passed out, drunk and asleep and they don't again call 911. They return to their rooms and they end up going to sleep. Well, the next morning they wake up and they're still sending text messages to the victims of this case, and this text messages are still going unreplied and they assume that the victims in this case are asleep or passed out or drunk, something to that effect. So at around 11 am, one of the survivors calls another friend, a male friend, and asked the male friend to come over that there's some weird stuff going on. When the male friend gets there, they make their way into the house and they determine that there's some kind of criminal activity has occurred. So they call 911 at 1158 in the morning.
Speaker 1:When they call 911, they don't report a murder, they don't report a bloody crime scene, they don't report a stranger in the house. At night they do, but that's not the point of the conversation they're having, they report that something's going on. They need the police, they need an ambulance. They have an unconscious person that's not waking up, maybe drank too much, and that's what they're calling and reporting. So why would they call and report that over the bloody crime scene when you've got these students who have been brutally murdered with an edged weapon? And we know that now that's what occurred? We know a military-style K-bar knife was used to slay these victims and I personally have had several stabbing cases, but one of which was very brutal the Anastasia Hester case, which I've done a podcast on. It's a very brutal where the victim got stabbed upwards of 70 times in her apartment. I know what that crime scene looks like. That is not the first time that I've seen that bloody crime scene. I'm going to go back to Alaska.
Speaker 1:Years ago I mean 2005 maybe and we went on a welfare check. A friend of mine, a partner of mine, went on a welfare check to a house to check on one of the local assistant district attorneys. And he gets to the house and he looks inside the window and he sees the district attorney laying there on the bed and he's like well, all is well with the world and he reports yep, everything is good. He's not answering the door but he's asleep on the bed. Life is good.
Speaker 1:Well, it wasn't until the next morning it was discovered on the second welfare check that there was actually he had shot himself and for some reason, in that moment the officer a trained observer is looking in the window and doesn't see the blood. And the blood spatter and the brain matter and the gory, gruesome scene. The brain tuned that out and he didn't see that. And the gory, gruesome scene. The brain tuned that out and he didn't see that Nothing had changed. The victim in that case was laying in the same place that he was laying when he was discovered the next day. When my partner went and looked through that window, it was a bloody, messy crime scene. But it's not because he wasn't observant, it's because as human beings, we don't want to see the negative. And my partner is a police officer at the time but he was relatively new, probably his first experience with a traumatic scene or a tragic scene or a trauma scene like that. And you know, he just didn't see the blood In this case these kids whether they're not seeing it because their brain isn't registering it or whether they don't want to believe that it's true.
Speaker 1:As human beings, we don't want to believe that negative things happen. We don't want to believe that bad things happen and there's evil in this world that can come and shake us to the core. So oftentimes, when bad things do happen to us, we minimize them, we divert from them, we pretend to think they don't exist. We put up these barriers and these blocks in our mind and these psychological walls that keep us from truly experiencing the moment or recognizing where we're at.
Speaker 1:What about you? What about the time when, anytime that you've been in a situation where you're feeling uneasy, you're down by the pier, you're downtown, you're walking around, you're on a lonely, dark road and that car starts to slow down. You get a little weirded out inside, but you don't automatically think man, this is a serial killer, the guy hanging out down by the pier that you're down there walking around and every time you look back he's behind you. You're like man, he's following me. He might want to steal my money. You're not thinking he's going to slip my throat and kill me, but that's very possible.
Speaker 1:As to what that guy is there? Why? Because we're minimizing what the events are that may take place. That's what happened in my friend's situation in Alaska and I also believe that's what happened in the situation here. So the incident occurred about 4.20 in the morning is when the victim saw the male with the bushy eyebrows leaving through the apartment slider in the kitchen. But it wasn't until 11.58 that they called. Well, why did they go back to their room and not call the police? I would submit it's for the same reasons because we're minimizing the actions.
Speaker 1:We don't want to believe this occurred to us. It's happened to everybody else. We see it on TV but there's no way that is truly happening inside of my four walls. We want to deny, we want to avoid, we want to pretend that we're not the ones that are shook up and I've seen this before professionally when incidents occur and people there's delayed reports on 911, or they don't call 911 at all or their child is missing and instead of calling 911, they look around. They got a four-year-old missing and they let the four-year-old go missing for five, six, seven hours before calling 911 because they don't want to believe this child maybe has been abducted. They don't want to believe this child might've fallen into the lake and drowned and died. They want to believe. The child is just going to come back, and I think the situation we're looking at in Idaho, in my opinion, is no different.
Speaker 1:We have a traumatic situation. Their brain knows the potential but doesn't want to believe it and just wants to hope that everything is okay, wants to hope that they're passed passed out, wants to hope that the boogeyman wasn't actually in the house Maybe they were seeing things because they've been drinking and the next morning, even when they know there's some kind of criminal activity afoot, they report on 911 that it's an unconscious person that needs medical assistance. Not, there's blood all over the place and this person has been slain with an edged weapon. So at times these kids were crucified for this. They were literally looked at as suspects. You know, okay, we got to start on the inside and look our way out, and I totally get that. But there's also got to be training or education to folks, especially on the law enforcement side, that says you know what? This is what the body does, this is what the brain does during traumatic events. And on the outside, looking in, the lay person would be like, oh, they're guilty as hell. There's no way. I mean, they went back and they didn't call the police for seven hours. Are you kidding me? Oh my gosh. There's information out there that talks about all of this and can justify these quote unquote strange behaviors that people sometimes exhibit. So what now? So now we have this crime scene, we have the police responding, we've identified the fact that we got a murder. So what are those next steps that that investigator is looking at, you know, and as an investigator, we're going to obviously secure the crime scene. Right, we've all seen that on TV. We're going to secure that crime scene. We're going to start doing interviews with the people inside the house. On TV. We're going to secure that crime scene. We're going to start doing interviews with the people inside the house. We're going to do a canvas of the neighborhood, both a knock and talk canvas on doors. We're also going to do a CCTV canvas, which means we're going to be looking all over the place for cameras. And that's exactly what occurred.
Speaker 1:In this situation, we need to identify who are the victims. What is the victimology in this situation? Victimology meaning the study of the victims. Who are these kids? Are they high risk kids? What social circles do they run in? Would there be anybody that have a harm to hurt them. Would there be anybody that have a harm to hurt one? But as they came into, it found three other victims or three other people in the house that got in the way, and those were collateral damage. In this case it seems like it was a targeted attack and other people just happened to be there. You know, so that investigative steps and processes.
Speaker 1:Next we can look at what people can tell us, and not only from our people inside the home, but what our witnesses on the outside say, what our Canvas interviews yield. But we also have to start looking at digital evidence. You know, in today's day and age, we're leaving a digital footprint everywhere that we go, whether we want to or not. Sometimes the digital footprint is plainly obvious, other times it's hiding in plain sight. So what do I mean by this? Well, we need to start taking a look at cell phone towers in the area Now. We can do a cell phone tower dump that says, hey, we want these cell phone towers that cover this geographic area and we want to know every single cell phone that was paired up in these cell phone towers during this timeframe and you're looking for. Maybe you'd have a known suspect that you're looking for or maybe you don't have a known suspect, but you're looking for somebody that travels into the area at 4.30 in the morning and then travels out of it. So we need to start looking at this stuff.
Speaker 1:We also in that CCTV canvas oftentimes will give us what it is that we're looking for, at least have a suspect vehicle and that suspect vehicle we can oftentimes track and trace. And I know you've heard me talk about this in several other murder cases of mine that I've spoke about. But let's just talk about a CCTV canvas. So we are going to go around and we're going to talk to all the businesses and the homeowners in the area that have everything from ring doorbells to full-fledged security camera systems, high resolution, and we're going to take a look at those and see if it yields any information. Do we see any cars traveling through the area, leaving the area, coming into the area and in a situation where you have a crime that occurs at you know, 0430 in the morning or four o'clock in the morning, something like that, especially in a small town like Moscow, idaho, in a rural residential area, there is not a lot of cars coming and going. So when you do get that ring camera activation or you get that security camera activation, there's a good chance that is going to yield some evidence for you and in this case that's exactly what it did. The CCTV canvas showed that about two o'clock in the morning or so there was a white Hyundai Elantra that was circling the neighborhood and the home at 1122 King Street is at the end of a dead end road and that security camera shows the car circling the neighborhood over and over again and it shows that at about four o'clock in the morning that car pulls up and stops adjacent to the victim's home and near the kitchen slider and it shows somebody leaving the car, going through the kitchen slider and then 15 minutes later coming out of the kitchen slider, getting back into the car and taking off at a high rate of speed. And it takes off at such a high rate of speed it nearly loses control as it makes its way south out of the area.
Speaker 1:In the detective world we don't just stop looking around the crime scene because, understanding that our digital footprint will track us wherever we go. You know, I would be willing to bet that if you left your house right now and drove to the grocery store where you get your grocery every day and you come back home without knowing it, you are probably passing 30 to 50 cameras. We have the ability of knocking on doors and asking for those from point A to point B and back to point A again. The cameras aren't only on residences and business. We have cameras on the highway, there's cameras at intersections, there's DOT cameras, there's red light running cameras, there's speed cameras. All of these things are available assets and resources and it's kind of like cheating, I understand that, but it's a great way.
Speaker 1:So a cctv canvas and in this case, specifically, when they start looking at the cctv canvas and they're putting the other piece of the investigation together, they're able to track cars to and from the crime scene, and specifically this car to and from the crime scene. And what you're going to learn here in just a second is that they actually got the suspect vehicle on camera, leaving his house, driving to the crime scene during the time frame he committed the murder and then leaving the area. However, that suspect took back roads to get back home. While they don't have him on video taking the back roads home, what they do have is when he turns his cell phone back on. They have cell phone tower data that puts him and drives him all the way back to his house. So you have the entire loop, if you will, from the suspect leaving, committing the murder and then returning home. Well, at least being in the area right Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. What would that come up in the court process? But based on the circumstances, the facts of the case and the fruits of the investigation is yielding, it sure looks like the person left their home, drove to the crime scene, committed the murder and then returned back home.
Speaker 1:Now this information with the CCTV, coupled with the victim statements from inside the home that were obtained, this is now corroborating evidence. We have a good chance to believe the person in this white Elantra is likely the person responsible for these murders, believe the person in this white Elantra is likely the person responsible for these murders. Even though we have a time delay of that 911 report, it really doesn't matter because we have the physical evidence to back it up and we can now have something to go with. So with that Hyundai Elantra, there's a few things we can do with it. We can do a DMV search of all Hyundai Elantras within a certain year time frame that lives within a certain radius. We can do that and I don't know if that was done in this case or not, but I do know what was done is this information was released to local police departments in the area.
Speaker 1:This is what we're looking for. It's a vehicle of interest in this murder and, as you can imagine, this murder, everybody knows about it. Well, there was a campus police officer in Pullman, washington, at the University of Washington, that heard they were looking for a white Hyundai Elantra. So he just did a query as to all white Hyundai Elantras that were registered to the school and, sure enough, he found one. He found one registered to a gentleman named Brian Kohlberger, registered to a gentleman named Brian Kohlberger. So in doing research on Brian Kohlberger Brian Kohlberger is a PhD student in the criminal justice program when we start looking at pictures of Brian Kohlberger, it's very obvious that he has very large, bushy eyebrows.
Speaker 1:They're unique, they stand out. You know, the research into Brian Koberger shows that he's a loner, he's a PhD student, maybe on the spectrum somewhere, just not. And it turns out that he is on the spectrum and that came out during the court process. You know, spoiler alert he's going to be our killer. These things are unique because he matches the physical descriptors and the unique bushy eyebrows that was described by the witnesses from inside the home. So as we look more into Brian Koberger, we realize that he is from Pennsylvania. Well, within weeks of the murder he contacts his father and says hey, I'm having some trouble out here at school, I want to come home. So dad comes out to Washington, they get in a car and they drive together back to Pennsylvania, back to the family home, and during that travel between A and B, koberger gets pulled over two different times for speeding and traffic infractions and violations. Polite cooperative provides his information white Hyundai Elantra, the license plates on the car, so on and so forth and he ultimately makes his way back to Pennsylvania. Once he gets back to Pennsylvania, detectives are starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together that this could be our guy.
Speaker 1:Now you know, we have the DNA from inside the crime scene, and the DNA from inside the crime scene came from a knife sheath. That knife sheath was laying underneath the victims in the upstairs bedroom. That knife sheath was for a K-bar knife. The K-bar knife is a military style knife and it has a metal snap on that sheath. Well, there was DNA found underneath that snap.
Speaker 1:Now, what's unique and important about the DNA in this case is it's very rare that you get this, but it's a single source, male DNA, meaning it's not a mixture. It's not two people that would be a mixture DNA, not a single source. It's a single source. One person left this DNA. If you can find the person responsible for leaving this DNA, you can then match them up and say, yep, by a shadow of a doubt, this is the person that touched this knife sheath.
Speaker 1:So with that, they were able to send that DNA off and they ran that DNA through the CODIS database, but they weren't able to come up with any viable hits, meaning that the person that left that DNA didn't have any criminal DNA in the system. They had never been in a position to have to submit their DNA to a criminal investigation of sorts. So they're left with some dead ends. They know they have DNA, but they don't know how to make that DNA, or at least they don't have any way to tie that DNA to a specific person. So then they go to familial DNA, meaning that people within the family will share certain characteristics of their DNA profile, and that is the way that you can narrow it down to see if you know the person with the DNA at the crime scene is related to so-and-so Maybe genealogical DNA is done the same way, or a missing person case. You find a dead body and they're able to extract DNA, but not identify who the person was. Now you go to the family members of other missing people that may match that description, get their DNA and all of a sudden you can include or exclude those people as being relatives of your you know, unknown deceased body. And in this case that's what they're doing. They need to find a way to connect the dots between the DNA at the crime scene and the potential of it being this Brian Koberger guy from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1:So investigators out of Moscow, idaho, partnered with the FBI and other federal agencies to go and do a trash pool out of Pennsylvania. And a trash pool is where, in most states not Oregon, because Oregon sucks, but in most states when you put your trash on the curb, you have relinquished all rights, controls, authority or interest in that trash. It's considered abandoned property. Therefore, that trash can be collected and sifted through. As a result of that sifting, you may find bills with information on it, names, maybe DNA, maybe evidence of a crime. That is what occurred and as a result of that the investigators found DNA. The DNA came from a male source.
Speaker 1:The DNA was so strong investigators were able to say the DNA that they found during that trash pool belongs to the father of the suspect who killed the four children in Idaho. Armed with that information, that gave detectives enough to do probable cause. A probable cause statement simply says that we have probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and this person likely committed the crime. In this case the probable cause looks like this we have a murder that occurred in Moscow, idaho. Four children were brutally slain. At the crime scene we recovered a knife sheath with a metal snap. Underneath that metal snap was sole source DNA from a single person, likely the offender.
Speaker 1:Cctv cameras captured a white Hyundai Elantra in the area and fleeing the crime scene at 4.15 in the morning. Morning A victim from inside said the suspect has bushy eyebrows, is a male, about this stature, about this weight, and that's what they know. Law enforcement located on Whitehonda Elantra registered to Brian Koberger out of Pullman Washington. He's a PhD criminal justice student at the college. Cell phone tower data puts Brian Koberger's cell phone, which was likely in his possession at the time of the murder at or near the crime scene. The cell phone data also shows that Brian Koberger was in the area of the crime scene, which is a travel distance from his home, 23 times in the prior several months and our training experience tells us that he is stalking the crime scene and planning his attack. Brian Koberger recently moved from Washington State back to his family's home in Pennsylvania. Brian Koberger recently moved from Washington State back to his family's home in Pennsylvania and during a trash pool DNA was discovered that belongs to the father of the suspect in the murders. With that information they were able to obtain an arrest warrant that the crime of murder was committed and that Brian Koberger was likely the suspect involved in this case.
Speaker 1:We're not saying it's beyond a reasonable doubt. That's what the court process is for. Our burden of proof for probable cause is somewhere between preponderance of the evidence, which means 51% will believe that it's true or that it happened. Preponderance of the evidence is the burden of proof that's needed in a civil investigation or a civil case, an insurance fraud case, et cetera. That is preponderance of the evidence is the burden of proof that's needed in a civil investigation or a civil case, an insurance fraud case, etc. That is preponderance of the evidence. Then you have probable cause it is more likely than not crime was committed. This person committed it. Then you have the ultimate standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what you're trying to get to in a courtroom, after you're able to slow down, collect all the evidence, present your case to a judge or jury and the suspect or defendant in this case has proper criminal representation.
Speaker 1:So once Brian Koberger got back into Washington state, they did a DNA sample from him and, sure enough, they linked it up that he was the sole provider of the DNA located underneath the snap from that knife sheet. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's the killer. Now I want to believe that it does and, being the cop minded guy that I am, I want to believe that. You know this is a slam dunk case, but it's not. And here's why it's not a slam dunk case because DNA, while super solid and I do believe we've met probable cause DNA can be discredited and it's going to be discredited or disputed by a defense attorney. And you have to remember that in our criminal justice system is an adversarial system between criminal prosecution and criminal defense, and criminal prosecution is sworn, to tell the truth and present the facts of a case.
Speaker 1:Criminal defense attorneys are not held to the same standard. They simply have to create confusion. They have to take a group of jurors and get the slightest bit of doubt into their mind that the person didn't do it. And if they can convince them even the slightest bit, it needs to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If they can get just a little bit of information in there and make one juror believe that this person didn't do it or that there's a hole in the state's case, then the guy's found not guilty, right? So in this case they're going to try to attack and they did try to attack that DNA evidence.
Speaker 1:They said that this was a party house Remember, I said that earlier and there's been lots of people in there and somebody else might've got the knife sheath from Koberger and accidentally dropped it in there and nobody noticed it. And the real killer came in and killed him on top of it and they rolled around and got blood all over it and this is just, you know, a red herring and the state's really looking at the wrong guy and there's some alternative suspect theories out there. Maybe this person did it, or with all the people coming and going. Now we need to. Not defense is going to say we can't just look at Koberger, we have to look at the hundreds of people that have been in and out of that house because they're all suspects. Now we know that's bullshit from the prosecution side. We know that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, there's a pretty good chance it's a duck. Now we still need to put our best case forward and we still need to cross the T's and dot our I's and make sure that we're asking questions today that we can answer tomorrow and that are going to close some loopholes. We also need to make sure that we're allowing the evidence to take us to where we need to go.
Speaker 1:It's so often to get tunnel visioned on Brian Koberger because of the DNA or because his car's in the area and all that stuff is good, that's all circumstantial, but at the end of the day we need to be able to take all that circumstantial evidence and put some facts behind it, put some kind of science behind it, corroborate that circumstantial case in some way. That is called evidence. That's called following the trail of evidence, not just coming up with a theory and trying to fit your theory to what you see in front of you, but it's simply allowing the evidence to provide the theory. And in this case, when they looked at the cell phone records, they found that Brian Koberger now he's out of Pullman Washington, which is 15, 20 minutes away, something like that 15, 20 miles. Whatever it is, it's some other part of the area, in the area around the victim's home, of the area In the area around the victim's home, 1122 King Road, there's cell phone towers.
Speaker 1:Well, in the five months prior to the murder, brian Koberger's cell phone pinged on the tower near the victim's home 23 different times, including the night of the murder. And we have to say, because we have to be fair, you know, and the argument is going to be well, maybe he's got a legitimate reason to be there, maybe he does, but let's have him explain that, let's have him explain why his pings on the cell phone tower always occur at night and his phone always stays on and he circles the area and he's in and out of the area and he travels back to Moscow. We know as homicide detectives these are scouting trips, these are trips where he's planning his attack, he's looking at the ways to get in and out of the area. Where is he going to park his car? Are there CCTV cameras around? You got to remember this man is a criminal justice PhD student. He understands crime scenes, he understands criminal investigations, he understands how to catch a criminal. So he's got to figure out ways that people can't catch him. But we don't catch the smart ones right, we don't catch the savants of murder.
Speaker 1:What we did learn about Brian Koberger is that during his PhD studies he had a fascination with Ted Bundy and he researched Ted Bundy and there's a lot of similarities. Ted Bundy is a criminal justice student in Washington State who ended up being a murderer and during his murder process he went out and killed random people. All of these things are kind of similar and have a parallel to our suspect in this case, brian Koberger. But even that is not enough to say he's the guilty one. We have to be able to take it. So some of the evidence that the state brought forward is the 23 times pinging in the area. Just a second ago I said that his phone stays on during these 23 times as he makes his loop. Sometimes in a criminal investigation we look for things that are not there.
Speaker 1:And on the night of this murder the detective saw that Kohlberger's phone was on until about 2.40 something in the morning. As he travels away from Pullman, washington towards Moscow, idaho, towards the crime scene, his cell phone goes dark, meaning it gets turned off. Then the murder occurs. We have the CCTV between about 2 am and 4.15 am that shows this white Elantra into the area, white Elantra parking, white Elantra out of the area CCTV track to the rural part of the state, kind of drifting back towards Pullman. Then at about 4.48 in the morning the cell phone comes back on and it's in a rural part of the state and it tracks all the way back to Brian Koberger's house.
Speaker 1:So what does that tell us? That tells us that there's a pattern. Typically the pattern is he comes into the area, he drives around, he does his thing, his cell phone is on, life is good. On the night of the murder he comes into the area, he drives around, he does his thing, his cell phone is on, life is good. On the night of the murder he comes into the area, he turns his cell phone off. Why? Because he doesn't want to be detected at the crime scene. But he doesn't know that that is a huge red flag and a big I mean it's like you know, it's like a billboard saying, hey, this is weird, this is out of the ordinary, this is a break in the pattern and that is something that speaks volumes on the criminal investigations. That is a piece of that evidence that we're looking for to corroborate. When they did the search warrant on Koberger, they found that that morning, shortly after he returned back home, he took a picture of himself in his bathroom wearing all black, a black hoodie, and he's given a thumbs up. The reason that's important is there's also a picture that's eerily similar of Ted Bundy, that Ted Bundy took after a murder. So there's a connection there.
Speaker 1:While it's circumstantial, again, it's something that's adding a little bit of fuel to this fire and it's just a little another nugget of information that the prosecution is going to be working with when this comes to trial. Will that in itself hang somebody? No, it won't, but it's just a piece of the puzzle. It's kind of like driving a car and getting a DUI. If you're driving a car and the cop pulls you over and he walks up to the car and you might have glassy, watery eyes and you might have glassy, watery eyes. That in itself is not guilt of DUI. That is an indicator of it, is a step towards, maybe, a criminal offense. But when you start adding the slurred speech, the glassy, watery eyes, fumbling hand movements, unable to answer questions, unable to multitask, unable to maintain your lane, all of those things starts to paint a picture towards that probable cause standard that we're looking for. Does it mean you're drunk? No, you could be having a diabetic attack. But at least it's pointing towards the probable cause so we can take some kind of action to investigate. Now we get that person out of the car and we run them through field sobriety tests and we confirm unable to multitask, motor skills are off, odor of alcohol. They give a breathalyzer of a 1-0. Whatever that may be, that is the physical evidence that backs up our probable cause theory. And when we get to court, that is what the state is going to be saying is proof beyond a reasonable doubt this person is guilty of the crime of DUI In the Kohlberger murder case.
Speaker 1:It's these little pieces of the puzzle that the state is going to try to put together to present a big picture, to try to fill in the four corners of that puzzle I spoke about a moment ago so you can actually see what the content of the picture is that you're looking at. And this is just another piece of that puzzle that the state is going to try to put forward. But you've got to understand the defense. Every time the state puts something forward, defense is also going to counter it. They're going to claim their innocence, they're going to claim alternative suspect theories. They're going to try to muddy the water and create confusion to keep the state from being able to proceed. To muddy the water and create confusion to keep the state from being able to proceed.
Speaker 1:In this case, this went all the way through and there was a lot of media information released in this case. And as I start talking about problems in the case, I need to tell you that I honestly don't understand how or why some things occurred, and that is the documents in this case, and maybe it's because I don't understand Idaho case law. It would be different if it was here In Oregon. We seal all of our records, so that means that when we do a criminal affidavit or an arrest warrant or a search warrant, the facts, the story that got us to where we are, all of those probable cause elements that get us to where we are. Those are all hidden because we don't want them released to the media, because that can be sensitive information and if we release it to the media now, the only people that should know that are the killer and the cops. That's it.
Speaker 1:But if we have a document that's unsealed now, we're releasing all the details prematurely and it's feeding information to people. That can do a couple of things. One it can create alternative suspects. It can feed information to people that don't really know about the case but they can claim they do. It can also muddy the waters, and in this case it did muddy the waters. For an untainted jury. You have to be able to bring jurors in through the voir dire process and make sure they don't have facts and figures about the case or predisposed ideas and they're going to be a neutral party. And in a case like this, where you have four kids that were brutally murdered, it's going to be hard enough to try to find somebody that's not psychologically affected as it is. But now you have unsealed documents and there's information getting released that you know early on in this case, when I started hearing about the knife, sheath and the DNA and these different things, some of the things I've spoke about tonight.
Speaker 1:When I started hearing this as a homicide detective, I'm like why the hell are they releasing so much information? And, quite frankly, I thought it was incompetency. I'm like this has got to be an incompetent team of detectives that don't do murders in Moscow, idaho, and they're just releasing shit they shouldn't. Uh, maybe it's for fame, maybe it's for glory, maybe I, who knows, you know, and at the end of the day, maybe it was bad. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a case law thing and they have to. I don't really know, but I still don't truly understand. But I totally judged him for it and I still would love to know. I'm not saying they did anything wrong, I would just love to know.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't just the unsealed documents that caused a hiccup in this case and if you remember, here a couple months ago there was a Dateline episode that was released about this case. And having experience in Dateline, having a Dateline episode of my own, and having experience doing multiple different television shows about high-profile murder cases, I understand how the media works and I happen to know the producer of the case in the Idaho Dateline the same producer that produced my case and I know that he is a trustworthy source and I know that he, if asked, will hold information until it's ready to be released. And in this case, when Dateline was released here just a month or two ago, man, that was like a huge blow to the case and a complete, complete, like it was another shock. You watch the Dateline episode and it's two hours of every single detail. It's not just like I heard.
Speaker 1:The police saw a car in the area. It's the videotape of the car in the area. It is the cell phone searches, the pornography searches that Koberger made about looking for pornography involving forced rape upon drunk women. It's the type of car, it's all the details about the arrest. It's what he was doing at the time of the arrest. When they're doing surveillance, he's standing inside of his kitchen with rubber gloves on going through the trash, removing his items from the trash. All this information is being released on the media removing his items from the trash. All this information is being released on the media.
Speaker 1:Well, it's great for the consumer that wants to get out there and I'm not saying media doesn't have a right to produce this and have an entertainment value, and every you know the world deserves to know I get all that, but at the end of the day, we we don't want to screw up a case where we taint the case so bad that justice goes unserved for these four victims. And that's what we have to think about and that's what we are thinking about as detectives we want to make sure that this case stays as sterile and neutral as possible. You know, and especially on a high profile case and, like I said, I've had the experience of running high profile cases with lots of media attention, international media attention. One of my cases got a TV crew from Europe to come over to the United States and film a two week mini series with me, uh, based on the totality of circumstances in my murder investigation. So I understand, you know, releasing information and people need to know I get it, but not at the detriment or the risk of losing the case.
Speaker 1:And when I saw the Dateline episode, with all due respect, I was concerned that the amount of information released would give the defense a foothold to have this case thrown out or have evidence in the case banned. Or, more importantly, who on the inside is leaking this information? Who on the inside that has the critical information that's under lock and key in an evidence locker somewhere. Who has that information? Who is releasing it? It's got to be somebody from prosecution side, be it prosecutors, be it law enforcement former law enforcement records clerks, somebody like that or on the defense side. The defense releases this as information and muddies their own waters as a big giant twist to get the case thrown out because they know that Dateline isn't going to expose their source. I was super concerned. So the judge got pissed off at that, as you guys know, and ordered some kind of inquiry into it to find out who the leak was and try to identify the leak, etc. Etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:So, as a result of that, there was ongoing continuance requested by the defense. As a result of that, there was ongoing continuance requested by the defense, and the ongoing continuances by the defense are to continue this trial because they're saying they have 68 terabytes of data that they have to go through and evidence in this case is very professional, no nonsense. The judge in this case is a no nonsense judge and, quite frankly, or in the last month his opinions have been it's been pretty obvious that he is tired. He is tired of hearing the rhetoric, he is tired of the delays and the cancellations, and you know the pointing fingers. He just wants to move on with the case. It's been two and a half years and the victims and their families, they need resolution on this case. So, as we come up towards the end of this, these continuances and these requests you know he didn't quite deny it on his last statement earlier this week, but he said, you know defense says hey, can we get a continuance? We have 68 terabytes. Blah, blah, blah. You know the state hasn't helped and we need help doing this and we need 68 terabytes. And you know we're whiners and you know we're whiners. So the judge says, well, I hear you, but I would go ahead and continue as if we're going to have trial when it's due to start in August of this year, essentially saying there's no way in hell that I'm extending this, we're moving forward, get your shit together and, uh, let's move forward. So that is the last thing that's heard earlier or late last week.
Speaker 1:Then this week, bombshell, bombshell is Koberger accepts a guilty plea to all four murders and admits to them in court. So what happens then? So, and why, why are we admitting? Or why is the state doing this? And what was given up was Koberger says okay, I'll admit. Because I'll admit is if you take the death penalty off of the table, in an adversarial role of criminal justice system with your prosecution and your defense, the prosecution's job is to prosecute a case and send somebody to jail if the evidence shows that they're guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1:The defense's side of the fence is to lessen the charges. First of all, get their client off if the evidence doesn't show proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But if it does, then their job is to reduce the charges. So if Koberger was charged with 10 things and defense says okay, here's the deal, we're going to plead guilty to five of them. If you make the other five go away, prosecution says I get to send somebody to jail for something he did. Defense says I lessened your charges. It's a handshake or a plea deal. They sign the dotted line and everybody wins. It's a win-win for both sides. Well, in this case it was a win for prosecution because we got murder for all four and it was a win for the defense because they took death penalty off of the table.
Speaker 1:So a couple of things occur and have been occurring over the last couple of months, and that is in murder cases there's always the right to appeal if you are found guilty by a judge or jury. So when defense is asking for things like a continuance over and over again and getting denied by the judge or jury. So when defense is asking for things like a continuance over and over again and getting denied by the judge, or when defense is saying I have 68 terabytes of data that I need to review but I get denied by the judge. Or when defense says, hey, there's an alternative suspect and we think it might be Isidore Shagnasty that did this and not Brian Koberger, and the judge says you don't have enough, you don't even get to talk about Isidore Shagnasty, we're just going to move forward with Brian Koberger.
Speaker 1:When these things occur and the judge doesn't side with the defense, then the defense is setting themselves up for something called ineffective counsel and an appeal on ineffective counsel. An appeal on ineffective counsel can mean two things. One, your counsel sucks, they didn't do a good job, they didn't defend you well and, as a result, if you would have had better counsel, then, as a result, you would have maybe had a different outcome to the case. Ineffective counsel can also mean that the court did not allow the defense counsel to present a full and thorough case to the judge or jury, and had the court, ie the judge, allowed a full and thorough case, then the outcome may have been different. So these continuances and requests and alternative theory and everything else, these are all ways to set up for that appeal. So why would prosecution accept a plea agreement instead of taking this to trial and potentially executing, of taking this to trial and potentially executing the suspect in this case?
Speaker 1:An appeal process in a normal case can go on for decades. An appeal process in a capital murder case or a death penalty case can literally take 40 or 50 years. Well, why is that important? That's important because the families that are involved in these cases have to go through the court system for the next 40 or 50 years each time, relive the events and re-traumatize these people, and you don't actually get closure until maybe one day this guy is going to get the death penalty and get executed. But you could go through all this. At the end of the day, 40 years down the road, death penalty is taken off the table and he doesn't get killed and that's you know. You just went through hell for nothing.
Speaker 1:So one way of accepting a plea is to ensure that the person is held accountable for the crimes that were committed, for the crimes that were committed. It's also a way to ensure that the victim's families will not be drugged through the mud unnecessarily for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years. It is also a way to ensure that there is no appeal process. So if there's no appeal process and they give their rights up to an appeal process, the defendant does. When the defendant signs the line and says that, yep, I'm guilty and I did this, it takes away all of their rights to come back later and say ineffective trial, this evidence get presented, alternative suspects, all the other bullshit that defense attorneys use to create confusion to get people off. Defense attorneys use to create confusion to get people off. It takes away the defendant's ability to use that stuff down the road. They go to jail, they stay in jail, they die in jail, we move on with life.
Speaker 1:In this case, there are some of the victim's families that had a hard time with it and basically says the state of Idaho made a deal with the devil and they're upset and frustrated and I can understand their point of view because I have had victims' families feel that exact same way when I supported a plea deal. There's other victims' families that say we are ready to be done with this. We do not want to live this for the next 40 years. Thank you, state of Idaho, for making the plea deal. It sucks that he's not going to die, at least by the hands of the state. But as a result, we can have some closure to this and move on with our lives as well as we can, and I get both sides of that. I've had cases that literally in the 11th hour, a plea deal was accepted. Everybody is geared up mentally, physically, evidence, prosecutions, numerous lawyers, everybody is geared up to go to trial and in the 11th hour before the trial starts, a plea deal is signed and the family is left wondering well, why did we do this? And that's why Because we don't want this to be lost in appeals down the road this case in itself, in the four corners of this case, or this puzzle analogy that I'm using, the case in itself is not difficult.
Speaker 1:This is a very simple case. Strip away the noise of the media. Strip away the noise of Dateline. Strip away the noise of the media. Strip away the noise of Dateline. Strip away the noise of a shocked community. Strip away all of that noise.
Speaker 1:You have a single offender that targeted a victim's house, entered the victim's house under darkness, killed four people, people left, moved across the country, dna, tied him from the crime scene back to him. He was arrested, he pled guilty. That is not a difficult case, it's very simple. A difficult case if you were adding multiple offenders, multiple victims and multiple locations at multiple different crime scenes. Those things can complicate a case. You know I've had cases with four defendants and I've got seven defense attorneys that I'm having to interact with and talk with and take cross-examination from. Those cases with those moving pieces are very difficult. This is a very simple case. I'm not saying it's not brutal, it is a very brutal case One offender, one crime scene, four dead bodies and at the end of the day he pleads guilty for it.
Speaker 1:What made this case so difficult was the noise, the unsealed documents, the datelines, the media, the fact that everybody knew about the case. They had to move this case from Northern Idaho down to the Boise area to try to get an untainted jury and I would challenge and submit that even in the Boise area they probably wouldn't be able to get an untainted jury. I would guess that no matter where this trial occurred, the jury would be tainted because of the heinous acts that occurred and the complete exposure and saturation of media coverage and the leak of evidence in this case. So from a former homicide detective's point of view, I think this case is very simple at its core. I believe that there was not incompetency shown by the detectives. Now that I have more information, I should know the information, because nobody should, but they do.
Speaker 1:But when we look through the CCTV we see the stuff that's occurred, the investigative steps, investigative theories allowing the evidence to take them to where they needed to go, the great police work by the Pullman College police officer. All of that stuff was great police work and at the end of the day the resolution is what it is and it was positive on behalf of the state. I understand there may be emotions involved from those families of the victims that don't agree with it or don't understand it. But from a prosecutorial point of view, from a homicide detective point of view, from a homicide detective point of view, I totally get and wrap my mind around why the case resolved the way that it did. That's it. That is the case in a nutshell, you know, and we're going to go into sentencing on July 23rd on this case is when he gets sentenced, I suspect, as it sits right now in the paperwork, he's going to get four life sentences, die in prison, and I think this guy reached right up there with child molesters in prison. He better be in solitary confinement, protective custody in jail, or I think there's a very good chance that he may not make his full four life sentences.
Speaker 1:Well, there it is, folks. That is not a show that I would typically do, not a show I've ever done before, may never do it again, but I wanted to give the 20,000 foot view from a homicide detective's point of view on a case that gained national attention and just give you kind of my thoughts and ideas behind it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming back. I absolutely love having you reach out to me at at murderstomusic at gmailcom Murders the number two music at gmailcom. Jump on my Instagram murderstomusic all spelled out and become a part of the conversation. Love you guys. See you next week. That is a Murders to Music podcast. Bye.
