Disturbing Idaho Murders 911 Call Released, and New Bryan Kohberger Selfie Revealed, with Howard Blum ｜ Ep. 1032
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
166.17021
Summary
Four innocent college students were murdered in their own apartment in the middle of the night in Idaho in the early morning hours of November 22, 2022. The police have never been able to identify the killer, but a new suspect has been identified. Howard Bloom, journalist and bestselling author of the new book, When the Night Comes Falling, dives deep into the case.
Transcript
00:00:02.840
Make sure your team is taken care of through every twist and turn
00:00:05.980
with Canada Life Savings, Retirement and Benefits Plans.
00:00:09.660
Whether you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage
00:00:13.120
or build a workplace people want to be a part of,
00:00:16.200
Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes
00:00:19.400
so it's easy to find a solution that works for you.
00:00:22.840
Visit canadalife.com slash employee benefits to learn more.
00:00:31.160
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:42.640
Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:46.000
Oh, we've got some major updates in the Brian Kohlberger case out in Idaho
00:00:51.520
and his upcoming trial, which is still set for this August.
00:00:55.720
I mean, at one point it seemed so far away, didn't it?
00:01:00.420
Information about this case had been coming out at a snail's pace.
00:01:05.160
I've been following the case and talking with Howard Bloom,
00:01:09.520
you guys know him by this point, my team about it,
00:01:11.560
and even I am just blown away by what just got released.
00:01:14.780
In the last week, we learned more about how Kohlberger may have obtained the knife
00:01:19.220
prosecutors allege he used in the heinous act of killing four innocent college students
00:01:31.040
It happened within a 12 to 17 minute period at 4 a.m.
00:01:37.020
He was a teaching assistant and Ph.D. student at the nearby Washington State
00:01:42.160
and Washington University, and they were all students at Idaho.
00:01:48.240
And he is alleged to have come to their home in the middle of the night,
00:01:52.480
killed the two best friends, Madison Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves,
00:01:56.300
who were sleeping in a bed together, as female best friends often do,
00:02:00.300
as well as Zanna Kurnodal and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin,
00:02:04.400
who were in a different room on the second floor.
00:02:06.900
The two girls on the third, Zanna and Ethan on the second.
00:02:11.960
And there were two other roommates in the house.
00:02:17.420
And we are learning so much more about them and what they did or did not do.
00:02:25.560
All this as the prosecution releases a new photo of Brian Kohlberger
00:02:36.580
And it is the most chilling thing I have seen in years.
00:02:48.800
that was made from this house on 1122 King Street.
00:02:55.720
which for all this time they've been withholding from us.
00:02:59.700
And there's a lot in there and nobody has been,
00:03:02.740
nobody has been following this case closer than Howard Bloom.
00:03:07.640
He's the New York Times bestselling author of the book,
00:03:16.540
You want to know one big health secret that no one seems to be talking about?
00:03:23.840
But every day your gut is fighting a silent war against processed foods,
00:03:27.420
work stress, fluoride in the water, even the toxins that you breathe in the air.
00:03:32.320
And when your gut is in trouble, your whole body feels it.
00:03:35.240
Most people are spending money on probiotics that don't even work.
00:03:39.200
Most traditional brands die in your stomach acid before they reach your gut.
00:03:43.180
But Just Thrive spore-based probiotic is completely different.
00:03:47.020
Just Thrive is the only probiotic clinically proven to arrive 100% alive in your gut.
00:03:57.780
creating protective compounds exactly where you need the most.
00:04:01.020
Better digestion, healthy immunity, more energy, and easy weight management,
00:04:04.680
plus Just Thrive probiotic comes in a capsule or a delicious berry-flavored gummy,
00:04:11.860
To join the gut health revolution and take control of your health today,
00:04:15.020
visit JustThriveHealth.com and save 20% site-wide with promo code MEGYN.
00:05:05.360
Can you repeat the address to make sure that I have it right?
00:05:14.140
I need someone to repeat the address for verification.
00:05:20.640
And what's the phone number that you're calling from?
00:05:26.880
One of the roommates has passed out, and she was drunk last night, and she's not waking up.
00:05:35.820
Oh, and they saw some man in their house last night.
00:05:57.040
I need to know what's going on right now if someone has passed out.
00:07:31.460
Okay, I need someone to stop passing the phone around because I've talked to four different people.
00:07:45.040
I can't talk to them, but I need you to talk to me.
00:07:58.400
I have already sent the ambulance and law enforcement stay on the line.
00:08:04.560
If there's a defibrillator available, send someone to get it now and tell me when you
00:08:17.720
I'm going to let you go since he's there with you and can help you.
00:08:37.720
Just so the audience understands that the murders happened at 4 a.m.
00:08:41.720
That call did not get placed until almost noon the next morning, 11 55 a.m.
00:08:49.720
And for all this time, they have not released the 911 call.
00:08:56.720
We believe not totally confirmed, but we believe that the girl who made the call initially was
00:09:07.720
She's the one who saw an intruder, which they were trying to tell the 911 operator who
00:09:12.720
wasn't in the mood to talk about what happened the night before.
00:09:17.720
So we believe that's Bethany Funk who could barely get sentences out.
00:09:22.720
And Howard, you know, the remarkable thing, of course, is that they're talking about their
00:09:26.720
roommate having been drunk and she isn't waking up.
00:09:34.720
I am assuming that they had found Zanna Kurnodal, who was on the second floor with her boyfriend,
00:09:40.720
Ethan, because they are not saying for they only had three of the female roommates, but
00:09:45.720
they're not saying four of our friends are dead.
00:09:47.720
They're saying one girl's passed out and she was drunk last night.
00:09:52.720
It seems that they did not even go up to the third floor.
00:10:00.720
It's just it's so poignant what they went through.
00:10:04.720
And the idea, first of all, that they did not make the call, as you pointed out, until
00:10:13.720
And it's just been released that they were up that morning, one of the girls at 730,
00:10:19.720
another at about 820, and they were making other calls and texts.
00:10:23.720
And they still wait until 1150 or so to call the police.
00:10:31.720
And yet, you know, these children and they are children were overwhelmed by this.
00:10:37.720
And part of their reluctance, why they might not have called the police and the fact that
00:10:41.720
they were drunk, they didn't they didn't want to face the reality.
00:10:47.720
But you can see from the dispatcher how the kids, the students in this college town felt
00:10:56.720
We saw that on the police videos earlier when they come to the house on the noise
00:11:02.720
disturbances calls, how the cops go out of their way to dump their beer on the sidewalk.
00:11:08.720
There's a real antagonism between the students and the town.
00:11:12.720
And I actually that adds, I think, to their reluctance to have reached out for help.
00:11:22.720
Well, I was just going to say it's very eerie so that she she calls and says something is happening.
00:11:26.720
And they say one of the roommates is passed out.
00:11:30.720
Um, and that's they're clearly referring to Zanna Cronotl because when she says how old
00:11:39.720
And when you're that age, you know exactly the number of eight of years you are.
00:11:44.720
Like your your age means a lot, especially when you're 20 versus 21.
00:11:48.720
College roommates would absolutely have all the other ages in their heads of their roommates.
00:11:57.720
Because our understanding was if memory serves, I didn't go back and look this up, that he
00:12:02.720
was found closer to the doorway of the bedroom that he was in Zanna.
00:12:11.720
What I think and the way I reconstruct it is the door was closed and they were knocking
00:12:17.720
because when they go up, I think it's Hunter Johnson.
00:12:21.720
One of the friends goes up and knocks on the door.
00:12:29.720
And then to his credit, I mean, the young man's a hero.
00:12:37.720
He doesn't want them to confront what's in there.
00:12:40.720
And I'm not sure they actually even get a glimpse into the room.
00:12:57.720
They were, but they couldn't quite face this unthinkable reality.
00:13:03.720
And Hunter was the one who went in and he behaved like a knight in shining armor and difficult situation.
00:13:14.720
Because they're not saying there's blood everywhere.
00:13:16.720
You know, you and I have talked about how there was so much blood.
00:13:31.720
And so they clearly thought something was wrong.
00:13:34.720
Maybe it was that she wasn't responding to texts and she wasn't, I don't know why they're not talking about Kaylee and Maddie.
00:13:40.720
Kaylee, I think, wasn't even supposed to be there that night.
00:13:43.720
She had moved out, but she was back visiting Maddie.
00:13:47.720
Nobody seems to be aware that there also might be an issue on the third floor.
00:13:52.720
And then we have to talk about the thing you just mentioned, which is the text messages that morning.
00:13:59.720
They had intimations that something was wrong, because you can see, after the night before, the morning before, at 4 a.m. approximately, when she confronts Koberger, and then she, this is Dylan, and then she goes back into her room.
00:14:14.720
The two surviving roommates are texting back and forth.
00:14:24.720
Suddenly, Bethany, who's in the first floor room, tells her, run, come down here.
00:14:35.720
And they stay there together until about 7.30 the next morning when they wake up.
00:14:39.720
And again, they start texting and calling people.
00:14:46.720
They don't want to go into that room themselves, and they don't want to call the police.
00:14:53.720
And it's a tragedy, I think, that the tape wasn't released earlier, because for the past two and a half years, these two young women, the surviving roommates, have been slandered, libeled.
00:15:05.720
Their characters have been impugned if they somehow were involved in some sort of cover-up.
00:15:09.720
And you can just listen to this tape, and you can see that they were not involved in the events, but they are victims, too.
00:15:25.720
Because all along, we knew that Dylan had seen the perpetrator, had seen an intruder that night wearing a COVID-type mask with bushy eyebrows around six feet tall in the house at 4 a.m., in the 4 a.m. hour.
00:15:41.520
It was unclear whether he saw her, but she froze.
00:15:45.260
She went back into her room, and we knew that they didn't call 911 until noon the next day.
00:15:51.240
And it's been one of the big mysteries in this case.
00:15:54.180
She saw an intruder in the house in the middle of the night.
00:15:56.720
And we know from the police affidavit, she said she was in a frozen shock phase, and that's why she didn't call.
00:16:03.320
But that just seemed very strange that it would take you eight hours, like you eventually would call.
00:16:08.960
But then they were saying, well, it was a neighbor that came in and called.
00:16:14.880
But we understand that was Bethany, and we think Dylan was also involved.
00:16:18.720
So these two roommates now we know were texting, were scared, were in the—the one ran to the other one's room.
00:16:28.080
And it appears that they may have gotten a hold of Hunter to come over to help check things out.
00:16:32.760
But we still don't really understand the delay, why that didn't happen earlier than noon.
00:16:42.580
It makes no sense, but this was an irrational moment.
00:16:46.060
They were going through an experience that was overwhelming them.
00:16:49.860
They couldn't process it, and they didn't want to process it.
00:16:53.340
That was—they refused to confront the logic of what was happening.
00:16:58.100
Just as when Dylan sees the assailant in the house, she can't speak out.
00:17:06.680
If she had spoken up, I think she would have been a victim, too.
00:17:10.440
But because she's too overwhelmed, she retreats into her silence and goes into her room.
00:17:16.240
The intruder leaves the house, and she survives.
00:17:19.940
But, you know, this is really a story about people who are overwhelmed by events and don't want to face what is happening because it's too large.
00:17:28.640
I write in my book, coincidentally, about how Koberger's father, as he's going across country with his son, as they're leaving for Christmas break, he too is getting intimations that something is wrong.
00:17:45.400
He can't make this realization that his son is a monster.
00:17:48.520
And in the same way, these two young women can't somehow cross this Rubicon of what has really happened in their house, what has really happened to their friends.
00:17:59.660
I'm going to read for the audience what we have now on the text messages between the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk, from 4.22 to 4.24 a.m.
00:18:12.260
And we know—we know that the murders happened between 4 a.m. and 4.17 a.m.
00:18:17.720
So this is right after—clearly, it appears Dylan started texting Bethany right after she saw the intruder.
00:18:33.800
DM to Kaylee Gonsalves, who we now know is upstairs deceased.
00:19:09.380
Like he had something over his forehead and little mouth.
00:19:16.860
I mean, really, this sounds like, she says ski mask.
00:19:20.220
What she later told the cops was like a COVID mask.
00:19:42.680
But then, but then we have to talk about the texts the next morning, because what, what
00:19:52.700
At 730, the next morning, Bethany called her father at 730 in the morning.
00:20:07.040
Before a police officer or other adults showed up at that house.
00:20:13.480
When you talked about, when they say Zana is in black, they're trying to find a rational
00:20:17.500
reason, explanation of this figure that they see in black in the house.
00:20:22.160
They go, well, maybe that wasn't a man you saw.
00:20:32.660
The moment is too large for these people to process.
00:20:39.200
So Bethany called her father at 730 the next morning.
00:20:43.220
She also made several other phone calls before the 911 call and also took photos between 841
00:20:53.860
At 805, Dylan, switching over from Bethany to Dylan now, began using Insta.
00:20:59.480
Between 8.05 and 11.57 a.m., Dylan's cell phone accessed Instagram, Snapchat, Yik Yak,
00:21:10.080
and TikTok, according to a filing from the defense.
00:21:14.760
Now, that could be Dylan trying to see whether Zana or anyone else has been on and posted
00:21:29.580
Because they were very prolific social media posters trying to see.
00:21:32.840
I would believe they were just looking for diversions.
00:21:36.560
What would be most interesting, and I think the defense will want to get a hold of, is
00:21:42.820
what did the one girl say to her father when she called at 730 in the morning?
00:21:53.600
And why didn't the father then call 911 if she had discussed the matter with him?
00:22:00.700
That, to me, is the more inexplicable question that still needs to be answered.
00:22:10.000
And what also is interesting, all these questions that you're raising, this is just what the
00:22:17.800
Because there's no logical explanation for them.
00:22:21.600
And they're going to try to raise as much doubt as possible with the jury.
00:22:26.320
And that's what this trial is all going to be about, trying to find reasons to raise
00:22:31.880
doubt from things that seem, on one level, odd, but unfolded in real life.
00:22:39.360
Well, one of them, I'm not sure which of the roommates, but one of them called their
00:22:46.180
So again, you know, either again, if it was the one gal who'd already called her father
00:22:52.760
Um, and, um, so that was 1139 and then it was 1155 that they called the 911 operator.
00:22:58.980
So it seems like perhaps, okay, so it was Bethany who called her father at 730.
00:23:03.700
And again, we believe it was Bethany who called 911 eventually.
00:23:07.440
Um, and then at 1139, there was another call to a father by 1155, they were calling 911.
00:23:14.140
So perhaps, and that last call to the father, he was like, call 911.
00:23:17.300
And we know that actually, I think he said, call your friends, get your friends down here
00:23:22.780
when the father, that's what brought the kids from the fraternity, uh, down there to look.
00:23:28.460
And that's when the, when they had more people there, they felt protected in a way.
00:23:35.960
Now we'll get onto, uh, what the defense is revealing, what we've, what we're learning
00:23:39.660
about Kohlberger in a minute, which is even more fascinating than this, if that's possible.
00:23:43.200
But I just want to spend one minute first on these 911 calls, um, and, and what's going
00:23:48.400
on with the roommates because Steve Gonsalves, who's Kaylee's father has reacted.
00:23:52.880
He went on news nation on Friday to that call, listening to the four minute call that we all
00:24:01.780
Like any murder, your, your brain wants to gravitate towards how make this make sense,
00:24:13.540
This is a psychopathic person who does something that breaks the norm of all of our consciousness.
00:24:21.160
All of our minds are just struggling with the fact that this has happened.
00:24:25.460
So we can logically try to make it make sense, but it's not really going to make sense.
00:24:33.040
It's, it's not Hollywood where they try to make it all fit together in real life.
00:24:39.200
If you're just sitting there dumbfounded, like, why can somebody be killed in their bedroom?
00:24:49.620
Uh, you know, you, you're describing him as behaving heroically who went over there and
00:24:54.160
actually did apparently open up the door and see his best friend, Ethan Chapin dead along
00:25:01.200
Uh, Steve Gonsalves spoke to that as well on news nation on Friday.
00:25:14.500
This is a man who's seen his best friend dead, you know, like dying, like gone.
00:25:21.540
So, um, we exchanged a moment and I talked to him and he was trying to protect everyone
00:25:28.760
in that house to not go through what was overwhelming him at the moment.
00:25:34.300
So I don't know about the details of upstairs, downstairs, door open, door not, but in the
00:25:42.920
He was literally just responding to what he probably thought was a prank thinking his
00:25:49.580
friend, his best body had these girls rolling and, um, he showed up there and he, he seen
00:26:08.460
But Howard, you know, he raises a good point in that here we are with the benefit of 2020
00:26:13.400
hindsight, knowing what happened in that house that night, those girls did not know.
00:26:17.760
And your mind would not go to a murderer came in here and killed everyone.
00:26:24.140
You know, they probably would go to, I sense danger and I saw someone strange, but you know,
00:26:30.560
our instincts are generally like, don't get everybody spun up for nothing.
00:26:38.880
And yet they're also realizing in one part of their mind that something is very wrong and
00:26:48.220
It's as if you don't want to get the doctor's diagnosis of some horrible illness.
00:26:53.840
Gonsalves talks about, you know, there's no understanding of what happened.
00:27:01.940
There's no motive and you're never going to get really a motive for this entire case.
00:27:07.180
Maybe you'll, you'll hear a story in the court, but how can you rationally explain anyone
00:27:14.780
There is no reason that makes sense for any reasonable thinking person.
00:27:21.280
Now let's talk about Kohlberger because the stuff on him is just chilling.
00:27:38.880
They've revealed now that the state intends to introduce a photograph of Brian Kohlberger.
00:27:47.100
The night of the murders that the morning after, Oh my God, look at it.
00:27:51.620
The murders took place between four and four, 17 AM on the, in the early morning hours of
00:28:00.660
This would have been six hours after he allegedly committed quadruple murder, which he denies.
00:28:11.440
He looks like a vampire with no color whatsoever in his face.
00:28:18.460
He looks gaunt and he is giving the thumbs up sign.
00:28:27.740
What the defense is going to say, you look at him, he might look gaunt.
00:28:34.300
He might look like a vampire, but you don't see any blood and you don't see any blood in
00:28:40.640
And you don't see any blood on the shower curtain.
00:28:43.720
They're going to say, if he just, if he is the murderer, where was the blood?
00:28:48.680
And the prosecution at the same time introduced that photo to show his bushy eyebrows that
00:28:55.280
Dylan Mortensen, when she made the identification of the intruder.
00:29:00.120
I hadn't been looking at it for that purpose, but yes, it does.
00:29:10.720
I was trying to look at it closely, but other than is looking like a, you know, a really weird
00:29:23.340
Uh, and again, that bathroom curtain in the background, when the police go to his apartment,
00:29:28.780
when they have the search warrant after his arrest, there's no bathroom curtain there that
00:29:35.620
So clearly if this was his, it's got psycho vibes, it's definitely got psycho vibes from
00:29:43.120
With the guy committed a murder with a knife, like he's wearing all white.
00:29:50.320
It's, it almost feels like a murderer trolling us.
00:29:54.000
And we know from the police affidavit, Howard, that this would have been taken about an hour
00:29:58.880
after he went back to, if the cops theory of the case is right, based on police data and
00:30:05.100
Um, he went back to the site of the murders around nine 30 in the morning and apparently
00:30:12.660
And we know now, of course, nothing was happening at the scene at that time.
00:30:16.200
We inside the girls may have been texting, but the police had not yet been alerted and look
00:30:21.540
Then he, he appears to have gone back home, gone into his bathroom and taken this bizarre
00:30:28.540
It's, it's, it's extremely disturbing and disquieting at the same time, both the defense
00:30:36.140
and the prosecution are going to be able to use that photograph for their own purposes.
00:30:41.440
Again, the defense will make the case, no blood, no scratches, nothing to hide, no, no crime
00:30:48.940
And the prosecution is going to say, you know, look at the bushy eyebrows and they might even
00:31:02.560
This is just so deeply disturbing, but that's not the worst thing that's happened to Brian
00:31:07.000
Kohlberger, uh, over the past couple of years, as the case against him has been developed.
00:31:11.840
This may be, I mean, you and I've talked many times about what we think of the evidence.
00:31:15.480
And I think we both think one of, if not, well, there are two most problematic things,
00:31:19.780
the DNA on the knife sheath, which has been affirmatively linked to be, it is Brian Kohlberger's.
00:31:24.600
And also the fact that when they arrested him at his parents' home in the Poconos a few
00:31:29.820
weeks later, he was stuffing his trash into little Ziploc baggies with the intention of
00:31:34.860
disposing it, we believe, into the neighbor's trash, which is what he'd been doing, according
00:31:51.180
They found the knife sheath in the bed with the two girls, Kaylee and Maddie.
00:31:54.820
And it had touch DNA on the knife snap, a snap of the sheath, which they then linked, thanks
00:32:02.420
to genetic genealogy trees, back to the father of Brian Kohlberger, which is then what got
00:32:07.780
them to Brian Kohlberger, who was only 10 miles away.
00:32:10.720
And then once they got him in custody, they did an affirmative DNA test of his cheek swab.
00:32:15.320
And that was 100% plus whatever the numbers are.
00:32:18.160
They're astronomically in the favor of it being him and his DNA on that knife sheath snap.
00:32:23.940
But now they are revealing that they may not have found the murder weapon, Howard, but
00:32:30.700
they certainly found some incriminating things on Brian Kohlberger's Amazon.
00:32:37.100
I mean, Brian Kohlberger bought a knife just like the one that was used or left behind at
00:32:43.640
the murder scene with the knife sheath with the Marine insignia, a K-Bar knife, in March
00:32:48.800
before he even came out to Washington State University.
00:32:54.380
That would suggest that when he drove across country that summer with his father, he had
00:33:00.440
the knife and a sharpening tool he'd also bought, packed up in his belongings, taking out to
00:33:12.480
What also has been revealed is that after the murders and the knife has now disappeared,
00:33:19.780
his Amazon account or the account that's shared by Kohlberger and his family members, he was
00:33:27.700
clicking on other knives as if to purchase them again.
00:33:31.200
The defense is going to say that the Amazon algorithm just sends you there.
00:33:37.080
If you bought a knife in the past, they'll send you there again.
00:33:40.800
But buried in the prosecution's filings, they're saying that they're going to have a witness.
00:33:49.980
They mentioned that just yesterday, who's going to testify to him having possession of a K-Bar
00:34:00.540
Could a family member be going to the stand to testify against Brian?
00:34:06.860
I mean, they would feel an obligation, I think, to do it.
00:34:09.160
I just feel like the whole country has, you know, been interested in this case.
00:34:14.540
These family members, the sister in particular, I think there are two sisters, they, I just
00:34:20.580
feel like they'd have to do what's right if they knew it.
00:34:26.680
So what we're saying is, you know, they had not been public until now.
00:34:29.660
One of the sisters I just found out, excuse me, is writing a book, which is sort of interesting.
00:34:36.260
Oh, well, she's welcome to come on the Megyn Kelly show to promote it, because I'd love
00:34:40.500
She can't publish until the gag order is lifted, but she's writing away from what I hear.
00:34:46.340
Well, so it's very interesting that he would have potentially gone back on Amazon searching
00:34:58.660
Like, he lost the knife sheath and didn't have the knife anymore because he disposed of
00:35:06.380
And therefore, in case the police ever came knocking, he wanted to have that knife that
00:35:12.420
they would see in his Amazon history he purchased back in March before he got there, still sitting
00:35:21.420
I still have my knife and it's not anybody's murder weapon.
00:35:24.240
Or, you could make the case he had more murders in store that he considered doing it again.
00:35:31.500
That's the chilling hypothesis that the prosecution, I think, is going to try to make.
00:35:37.200
And that's how they're going to justify any shortcuts that were taken in this case.
00:35:43.400
Here we had a murderer they're going to claim, allege, who was ready to kill again.
00:35:48.600
What was the, do you have the, do you remember the timeframe off the top of your head where
00:35:51.980
he started to search for a new Amazon, on Amazon for a new K-bar knife?
00:35:58.160
It's days after the murders, within 24 hours or so.
00:36:13.240
Well, the defense, Kohlberger's defense is now sort of, would concede.
00:36:17.200
That was, uh, Brian Kohlberger's, uh, DNA on the knife sheath.
00:36:23.660
The real question now, what's going to be the focus of this trial is how did the knife
00:36:30.020
We're going to, the defense is going to claim that Brian Kohlberger was never in the house.
00:36:37.220
The real perpetrators, uh, put that knife sheath there and somehow they had gotten, uh, Kohlberger's
00:36:46.700
I mean, what I'm gleaning from what's getting released now is the defense knows it's, I
00:36:53.400
don't want to say it has lost, but it's got an enormous uphill battle.
00:36:58.060
And you tell me, cause you've been following it so closely.
00:37:00.540
It appears to me they're now just doing what they can to mitigate the expected bad results
00:37:06.380
as opposed to truly try to get a not guilty, which I'm sure they'd love, but I think they're
00:37:11.600
I think in the back of the defense's mind, and this is what I'm hearing, uh, is they're
00:37:21.740
Just last week, I think it was March 12th or so, uh, Brad Little, the governor of Idaho,
00:37:28.700
signed a law that makes the firing squad the primary form of execution in the state.
00:37:36.340
You get convicted in a death penalty case, you go before the firing squad.
00:37:41.840
And Koberger's team is now trying to do whatever they can to avoid it.
00:37:48.000
The key to that defense is they've raised, uh, that Koberger has, is on the autistic spectrum.
00:37:56.740
And they're saying that he's has an inability to concentrate, to focus his presence in the
00:38:06.400
And they're saying that will be prejudiced jurors and therefore that the death penalty should
00:38:13.900
I believe, and this is just my, my theory, my hypothesis is that they don't think that
00:38:18.940
will fly, but they're hoping down the road that if Koberger still wants this case to go
00:38:25.720
to trial, that they're going to be able to say because of his autistic spectrum, uh, profile that
00:38:32.360
he can't make his own decisions, that they have to make the decisions for him and that
00:38:44.920
That's going to be the, I think the big drama of this trial.
00:38:48.520
So they are, you think they're now, because now they're saying he has, he's on the autism
00:38:53.240
spectrum that he has obsessive compulsive disorder and that he has something called developmental
00:39:01.780
And, and so is the purpose of saying all that to set up, I mean, I don't know how you'd use
00:39:09.260
That's a long leap to go from that stuff to insanity.
00:39:13.220
Or is the purpose of that just to be like a mitigating factor to avoid death penalty?
00:39:19.160
Well, it was done to avoid the death policy, but also buried into that, uh, motion is they
00:39:26.040
talk in great detail, which I sort of found surprising about Kohlberger's inability to
00:39:31.860
process information and to, this is a PhD graduate candidate, and also to work with them, to give them
00:39:42.960
So I think they're going to claim that he's unable to be in charge of his own defense, that
00:39:50.420
And therefore they want to take over the case completely and make the decisions.
00:39:54.560
And they want without his permission to go forward to the state and try to make a plea deal.
00:40:01.820
Do you think there's any chance he's saying something behind the scenes, like I will testify
00:40:06.620
and they're trying, they're getting ready to use these things to say, your honor, you can't let
00:40:11.940
It's definitely against his interests and we need to be able to overrule him in this fundamental
00:40:20.940
They want him, he's given this alibi that he was out, you know, looking at the stars at
00:40:26.740
4am on a freezing cloudy night when the murders took place in a rural park.
00:40:32.300
Uh, and the state is saying, well, since there are no witnesses, we want Kohlberger to get on
00:40:39.700
And so far the defense is saying not so fast, we're going to bring up cell phone people who
00:40:46.460
can maybe put him somewhere else or raise questions.
00:40:53.380
I think, and that's also part of, they will say his autistic spectrum behavior and they will
00:41:00.640
try to take the decision-making process out of Kohlberger's hands and maybe his, even his
00:41:08.680
And maybe getting all of this, if they can get all this, these disorders, alleged disorders
00:41:13.240
into the record without him testifying, it mitigates some of the other things that you
00:41:18.140
and I have talked about that may come in like his increasingly dissembling behavior in the
00:41:23.920
classroom at Washington state, the antagonism of his professors and the weird potential
00:41:31.200
stalking of one of his female students and, you know, volunteering to help put her security
00:41:39.000
Like they may be trying to, I mean, none of this stuff explains that everybody listening to this
00:41:43.380
knows somebody who's on the autism spectrum, who doesn't do any of that stuff.
00:41:46.960
You can be totally normal and be on the autism spectrum.
00:41:50.000
It might just be like a little socially awkward, not, none of that, nevermind OCD, which is
00:41:54.540
not like, and I don't know what developmental coordination disorder is, but it certainly doesn't
00:42:00.320
seem like it would explain any of that stuff, but there's a lot of very bizarre Kohlberger
00:42:07.540
And, but I think, you know, you can be bizarre and you can be weird and still be a killer.
00:42:13.620
And they realizing they're, the state is trying to throw everything they can.
00:42:20.220
They're trying to now also claim that they didn't get the discovery information in a logical
00:42:26.580
form that the state's claiming that or the defense is claiming that the defense is claiming
00:42:32.040
that I apologize that they were, it was, they described it as if a snow globe was turned
00:42:57.040
They realize they're getting put into a corner.
00:43:00.160
What they're, if they don't make a plea deal, what their case is going to come down to
00:43:04.960
is they're going to say that they were other perpetrators that the state, that the defense
00:43:11.260
and the government should have, I mean, that the prosecution should have looked into and
00:43:17.920
And they say they avoided them at their own peril.
00:43:22.780
They said, because you didn't do your job, we're going to go into the courtroom and we're
00:43:29.540
And that might be more pressure for them trying to get a settlement to avoid what they're going
00:43:35.060
to claim is a slipshod job in making this case by the prosecution and the investigators.
00:43:42.040
But that's, you know, they still, they will go back time and time.
00:43:46.620
What we're going to hear about, I think this summer is the question we repeated by Ann Taylor.
00:43:56.620
And that's what they're going to try to get the jury thinking about, that it was someone
00:44:04.480
The evidence of where his car was on the night in question is starting to shore up as well.
00:44:13.040
We saw the judge in the case, Judge Hippler, which again, is just a name.
00:44:18.520
You got it really got to hit the P when you say that hip it's hip, Hippler.
00:44:22.660
I don't understand why people keep these names that are so controversial or weird.
00:44:30.440
It was better than Judge Judge, the first one, the first judge in the case.
00:44:35.300
I guess we can forgive defense attorney Ann Taylor.
00:44:38.140
You know, she didn't, when her parents, when she was a kid, her parents might not know what
00:44:41.880
Anyway, um, Hippler just denied Kohlberger's request to bring in, uh, defense experts who
00:44:50.220
he wanted to offer testimony against both the Amazon shopping trip, who, as you point
00:44:56.180
out, I guess they were going to have their experts say, oh no, it was just like when
00:44:59.820
you order a vitamin and they assume your vitamin has run out and they send you a tickler, like
00:45:06.100
Like, here's another knife, just in case you were planning on killing anything else.
00:45:12.620
And, but also they wanted to bring in an expert, uh, to talk about his movements, um, the night
00:45:19.660
And Hippler said, no, Hippler said you can have, um, you can have that done by, uh, streaming
00:45:29.420
And, or he said, if we need to hear directly from the witnesses, we can, um, potentially
00:45:38.240
But when you, having looked at like the record of the car, where it's been, I mean, I'm looking
00:45:43.140
at the map and what it was basically going to show is he drove directly to their houses.
00:45:48.060
Like it's showing a pretty much a straight line.
00:45:50.860
Once he got near the house of going right to their houses, what did you make of the new
00:45:58.320
Well, the first part about what's so interesting about the cell phone, uh, triangulation, uh,
00:46:07.320
expert that the defense wanted to use, he's been used in other cases and his whole testimony
00:46:13.940
They really had a search to find one guy who would testify and they, they, they brought
00:46:19.800
in a very practical, problematic, uh, expert, uh, who's not quite an expert, a Colorado judge
00:46:26.500
through his testimony out of the court in a previous case.
00:46:35.460
And I think that's why Hitler, uh, was saying we don't need this as for the car.
00:46:40.620
You know, they're going to keep on hammering away.
00:46:43.240
You have no picture of a license plate and you have no picture of anyone over the steering
00:46:49.180
There's no clear photograph and that's, that's, they're going to make that case.
00:46:56.020
And they're also going to say it took the FBI three different times before they correctly
00:47:01.300
identified the car within a certain number of years.
00:47:05.000
And they're going to say the FBI couldn't make up their mind.
00:47:07.880
There's no license plate photo and there's no picture of a driver.
00:47:13.580
You know, they're going to try desperately, but there's just so much evidence against
00:47:18.420
Koberger that I think the prosecution has a very, very strong case.
00:47:24.600
So what now here we are, uh, well, five months out from trial.
00:47:30.740
Uh, what are the odds this does go to trial, Howard?
00:47:33.880
Or do you think it actually has a chance of pleading out to, I mean, I can't imagine the prosecution
00:47:38.760
with a case like this would take anything other than a murder one confession and possibly
00:47:45.960
I think the defense, uh, the defense will try to get a, a plea deal.
00:47:51.640
I don't believe in Idaho, uh, that the Idaho officials will allow this case to be settled.
00:48:04.300
Uh, it's been horrific for the whole state, uh, they can try to tear down, which the state
00:48:11.380
did the, the, the university did the murder house and make things go away.
00:48:23.200
They want this case to, to end in a punishment.
00:48:29.360
And I think Kohlberger, my belief is he'll have to be sentenced to face a firing squad.
00:48:34.820
I, I'm, I mean, I believe he did it and I would have no problem if a jury finds him guilty
00:48:39.980
The firing squad, you hate to like, think about it, but like, would it really be so bad
00:48:44.580
I feel like a firing squad in some ways may be more humane than like the electric chair.
00:48:52.020
Here's a, here's an argument that proves that in Idaho, that it's more humane.
00:48:56.580
Last spring or last October, they had a convict and they were going to use a lethal injection.
00:49:02.440
They wheeled him into what is called the execution chamber.
00:49:10.500
They give him eight lethal injections over a course of two and a half hours and none of
00:49:19.480
I mean, for some reason, they, the people doing these lethal injections were prison guards
00:49:33.300
Well, this is cruel and inhumane punishment to bring him again.
00:49:36.780
And the governor, uh, Brad Little, who just passed this firing squad law said, not on your
00:49:47.640
Did you say they have multiple shooters, so you don't know if you're the one who fired
00:49:54.280
All they've done so far, they originally made a $750,000 was put aside to build this
00:50:05.580
They've now said, for reasons that haven't been explained, they now need a million dollars
00:50:13.120
So in this million dollar room, they're still debating whether or not these will be robo
00:50:26.940
God, when you really start, it's just like any, whenever I start to hear about the death
00:50:29.880
penalty, I hear about the crime and I think I'm fine with it.
00:50:36.000
And then when you start to talk about the actual details of the state taking someone's
00:50:41.120
life, even someone as disgusting as this, I start to get uncomfortable with it.
00:50:49.120
I still, net, net, I'm in favor of the death penalty.
00:50:52.700
Howard, I am in favor of you very much for all the great work you've been doing on this
00:50:57.360
case and keeping us up to date like nobody else.
00:51:03.600
You guys always write the best thoughts on this case and I do read them.
00:51:09.900
And by the way, it being Friday, check out megankelly.com and go there if you want two
00:51:15.500
Number one, if you want to sign up for our American News Minute, you give me your email
00:51:18.600
and we don't sell your emails or anything like that.
00:51:22.340
And that will make sure that you get our once a week email with all like the highlights
00:51:27.420
of the show and all the news that you can, that you need to know from the previous
00:51:30.540
week in 60 seconds or less is a very good thing to have in the era of Trump.
00:51:34.700
But also it's a chance to get your email registered just with us.
00:51:38.900
Again, not to be sold just in case anything ever happens to the show.
00:51:42.960
So we can let you know just in case YouTube decides they're not big fans and we get pulled.
00:51:49.000
We would love to have a way of reaching our audience.
00:51:50.940
Again, if you are one of our email subscribers, you know, we've never bothered you.
00:51:59.620
Go to megankelly.com and sign up and we will send you our email today.
00:52:05.280
And you can hear all our latest antics with our very naughty boy, Stradwick, who's getting
00:52:10.500
slightly less naughty and highlights from a busy couple of weeks.
00:52:28.080
Are rising costs or scaling challenges holding you back?
00:52:38.200
Are you having trouble taking your business to the next level?
00:52:41.180
Financial Yield Solutions, Inc., or FYSI, provides tailored solutions for businesses generating
00:52:49.000
From tax planning, advertising, and retirement strategies to scaling operations, FYSI helps
00:52:55.500
For those considering selling their business, FYSI guides them through a winning exit strategy
00:53:01.880
With $500 billion raised for AI technology under the Trump administration, businesses cannot
00:53:08.740
FYSI can even help you explore AI integration to lower your costs, enhance efficiency, and
00:53:15.140
increase profits in today's rapidly evolving tech climate.
00:53:18.420
With over 14 years of experience, FYSI specializes in addressing the exact challenges business
00:53:25.060
Book your free business review today to transform your operations, grow your profits, and secure
00:53:30.940
Visit fysi.com slash Megan, or just call 800-877-4000.
00:53:42.520
Some days bring growth, others bring challenges.
00:53:45.080
But what if you or a partner needs to step away?
00:53:48.580
When the unexpected happens, count on Canada Life's flexible life and health insurance to
00:53:53.800
help your business keep working, even when you can't.
00:53:56.820
Don't let life's challenges stand in the way of your success.
00:54:02.220
Visit canadalife.com slash business protection to learn more.