In November of 2022, the bodies of four University of Idaho students were found in a house in the still of the night. Were they the victim of a serial killer? Or were they the victims of a college party gone wrong? Or was it an act of random violence? This week on The Megyn Kelly Show, Megynkellekiller takes you on a journey into a case that has captivated the nation since it happened.
00:03:55.700And it is Bloom's storytelling that we'll begin with today.
00:03:59.300We asked Howard if we could strike a deal where we could use some of his, not just his reporting, but his actual writing and intersperse it with our own so we could bring you some of the interviews and soundbites and so on that we've amassed for you to tell this story.
00:07:08.920The night of November 12th, Maddie and Kaylee went out together in Moscow to the Corner Club Bar. More on that in a minute. Ethan Chapin was in the house that night. He was a triplet. He and his brother Hunter and sister Maisie all attended the University of Idaho. His girlfriend was Zanna Kernodel. She had a tough upbringing, but she was thriving. Ethan and Zanna's parents.
00:07:32.780He literally lit up every room, every, everybody.
00:13:58.620The girl's natural warmth and respect on these tapes, even in a tense situation, makes their fate that November feel all the more incomprehensible.
00:14:08.780In March of this year, Howard Bloom was a guest on The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:14:14.440He talked about the afternoon of Sunday, November 13th, shortly after 1158 a.m., the time a 911 call came in from roommate Dylan Mortensen's cell phone.
00:14:28.060First thing, they knew that something serious was wrong because all they got a report of was an unconscious victim, an unconscious person, rather, at the house.
00:14:37.280And they see a group of kids mulling about the house like gulls on a beach, as it was described to me.
00:20:59.560It was Murphy, Kaylee's frisky labradoodle.
00:21:03.180He was unharmed, not marred by even a speck of blood.
00:21:07.800A small consolation and barely one at that for all they had seen and were only beginning to process.
00:21:14.900Later that day, around 4 p.m., a police officer named Brett Payne arrived at the scene.
00:21:21.620He would go on to interview the two surviving roommates, Dylan and Bethany,
00:21:27.140who in the affidavit he would file were only identified as DM and BF.
00:21:34.120Here is directly from the affidavit what he learned from his interviews with both Dylan
00:21:39.360and Bethany, although it appeared Bethany had slept through the commotion on floors above
00:21:44.900her first floor bedroom. DM and BF, quoting here from the affidavit, both made statements during
00:21:52.400interviews that indicated the occupants of the King Road residence were at home by 2 a.m. and
00:21:58.260asleep or at least in their rooms by approximately 4 a.m., he wrote. This is with the exception of
00:22:03.860Zanna Kernodle, who received a DoorDash order at the residence at approximately 4 a.m. Law
00:22:09.720enforcement identified the DoorDash delivery driver who reported this information. DM stated
00:22:15.820she originally went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor. DM stated
00:22:22.080she was awoken at approximately 4 a.m. by what she stated sounded like Gonsalves playing with her dog
00:22:27.880in one of the upstairs bedrooms, which were located on the third floor. A short time later,
00:22:35.360DM said she heard who she thought was Gonsalves say something to the effect of, there's someone
00:22:41.860here. A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Kernodal's phone showed this could
00:22:49.460also have been Kernodal. As her cellular phone indicated, she was likely awake and using the
00:22:55.040TikTok app at approximately 4.12 a.m. DM stated she looked out of her bedroom but did not see
00:23:03.140anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house. DM stated she opened her door
00:23:09.520a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kernodal's room. DM then said
00:23:15.920she heard a male voice say something to the effect of, it's okay, I'm going to help you.
00:23:23.280At approximately 4.17 a.m., a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately
00:23:30.460to the northwest of 1122 King, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper,
00:23:39.180followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4.17 a.m.
00:23:45.920The security camera is less than 50 feet from the west wall of Zana Kurnodal's bedroom.
00:23:54.420DM stated she opened her door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her.
00:24:05.880DM described the figure as 5'10", or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built, with bushy eyebrows.
00:24:15.920The male walked past Diem as she stood in a, quote, frozen shock phase.
00:24:21.720The male walked toward the back sliding glass door.
00:24:24.900Diem locked herself in her room after seeing the male.
00:24:27.660Diem did not state that she recognized the male.
00:24:31.460This leads investigators to believe that the murderer left the scene.
00:24:39.800We'll get back to the affidavit in a bit.
00:24:42.620Dylan then locked her bedroom door until the morning in a decision that would just befuddle
00:24:48.380so many people. Why? Why? Why didn't she do more? We don't know the answers, but surely we will
00:24:55.680by the time this case is tried. Then sometime after 11 a.m., the roommates attempted to wake
00:25:03.220their friends. They were unable to, and they would call others to the house for help. There,
00:25:08.840at least one of those friends finally dialed 911. Howard Bloom again with us back in March.
00:25:15.200One can raise all sorts of questions as I do at the same time. I think one has to cut this poor
00:25:23.860girl a little slack. In many ways, she's a victim too. She will live with this for her entire life.0.99
00:25:30.600she saw something incredible, astonishing, and she just perhaps couldn't deal with it.
00:25:42.740Back to Sergeant Gunderson. He quickly called his boss, Captain Roger Lanier,
00:25:48.500the head of the 24 Officer Operations Division. He found him, not unexpectedly for a Sunday,
00:25:54.460sitting down to lunch with his family. Lanier was a veteran cop. He had spent more than 20 years on
00:26:00.020the force in nearby Lewiston before having been lured six years earlier to Moscow with a captain's
00:26:05.540rank. After all his years on the job, he'd become a steady, avuncular presence, a bald-headed genial
00:26:11.700cop who never got flustered because, as he would tell people, he had seen it all in his day.
00:26:17.980But Gunderson's report left him unnerved. It took me a second, he recalled, a sharp edge even weeks
00:26:24.760later to the memory, I really had to think about what I'd just heard. Four murders in Moscow, Idaho
00:26:31.920was so out of character. At the time, they were fairly certain it was college students and it was
00:26:37.660near the campus and that area is kind of a campus community. So once I got over the initial shock,
00:26:44.200I knew that I was coming to the station. So I drove in and everybody just kind of fell into a
00:26:49.780roll. That was an all-hands-on-deck moment Sunday afternoon. It became fairly apparent when I got to
00:26:56.540the scene that we were going to need resources outside of just what the Moscow Police Department
00:27:02.600could provide. But quickly, Lanier's professionalism took control. He had a thousand
00:27:08.460questions, and yet he knew the only hope of finding answers would be to follow the previously
00:27:13.220established protocols. Dutifully, he gave the orders to set up the perimeters of the crime
00:27:19.340scene to bring in the forensic team and to summon the coroner. It was standard in a major case,
00:27:25.080and if four homicides was not a major case, what was? To alert the Idaho State Police,
00:27:32.320and he did that too. Moscow was the responsibility of the state's District 2 Detective Office in
00:27:39.360Lewiston, the county seat, and where he'd been on the job for two decades, and he knew many of
00:27:44.720the state detectives. There was a companionship. Still, it was a difficult conversation, but his
00:27:51.180next call was harder. The university had to be informed. It was not just that four students had
00:27:57.620been brutally murdered in an off-campus home, but there was no way of knowing whether the killer or
00:28:02.540killers planned to strike again. The students needed to be warned. At 2.07 p.m., a little over
00:28:10.260two hours after the three cops had entered the blood-soaked house, the University Office of
00:28:15.560Public Safety and Security sent a vandal alert email to the students and faculty, quote, Moscow
00:28:22.620PD investigating a homicide on King Road near campus. Suspect is not known at this time. Stay
00:28:28.100away from the area and shelter in place, end quote. A shelter in place order requires people0.96
00:28:33.800to take refuge in a room with no or few windows. At this point, busy hours had already quickly
00:28:40.040flown by, but despite his marathon of activities, Lanier still had not succeeded in completing one
00:28:45.800task that was at the top of his mental list. He had not been able to speak with his boss,
00:28:51.120James Fry, the chief of police. By the time Lanier had finally reached him, it was hours after the
00:28:57.520discovery of the bodies. And by the time Fry finally entered the home on King Road, it was
00:29:02.800dark outside, according to several accounts, close to 6 p.m. For some abstruse reason, he had thought
00:29:09.920it was important to go home first and change into his chief's uniform. Perhaps he hadn't fully
00:29:15.760grasped the magnitude of the disaster. Or maybe, after nearly 28 years as a Moscow cop, he had felt
00:29:23.940the imprimatur of his uniform was integral to his ability to command. But what he saw that evening
00:29:31.080left him, he would confide to a friend later, physically and emotionally drained. He was a
00:29:37.320father of two daughters who had attended the University of Idaho, and he had also graduated
00:29:42.500from the university nearly three decades earlier. It was impossible, he said, not to feel a visceral
00:29:47.940tie to the victims and to their parents. The cruelty of the crime was deep and affecting,
00:29:54.780and yet he knew there was police work to be done. His mind was racing, but quixotically perhaps,
00:30:02.220within moments of buried memory pushed itself forward.
00:30:06.860What if, Fry asked himself with a sudden alarm,
00:30:10.140a serial killer had attacked the four students?
00:30:14.680Pausing here to bring you some of Chief Fry's initial comments
00:30:18.440to the Moscow, Idaho community from his very first press conference
00:33:04.680an exasperated Chief Fry appealed to locals
00:33:07.120to become, in effect, consulting detectives.
00:33:09.980We appreciate everybody's help that has been sending in those tips,
00:33:14.060and investigators are vetting those and they're following up on those and the response has been
00:33:19.760very great we appreciate all the help from across the nation and our community he wanted help to
00:33:25.480put his men on the right scent detectives are looking for context to the events and people
00:33:30.960involved in these murders a moscow pd press release announced to assist with the ongoing
00:33:36.780investigation any odd or out of the ordinary events that took place should be reported and
00:33:43.320nearly begging the release urged, your information, whether you believe it is significant or not,
00:33:48.240might be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders.
00:33:52.640The tips poured in. A new generation of consulting detectives armed with cell phones and laptops
00:33:59.360with access to a vast repository of information from selfies to Facebook pages and further stoked
00:34:05.200by the barrage of the raw theories and hearsay disseminated on Reddit and 4chan embraced the
00:34:11.940opportunity. It was a real-life mystery that had the compelling allure of a particularly thorny CSI
00:34:18.640episode, and not least, the police were pleading for help. More than 9,025 email tips were received
00:34:27.580in addition to the 4,575 phone calls and 6,050 digital media submissions. An army of law
00:34:36.460enforcement analysts was assigned to the long daunting task to see if in all the oysters there
00:34:42.660was a single pearl. Much of it led down rabbit holes of fatuous speculation. Some of it was not
00:34:49.980just wrongheaded but cruel. Innocent ex-boyfriends, a hoodie-wearing bystander lurking at a food truck
00:34:56.860where Maddie and Kaylee had ordered early morning bowls of carbonara to soak up the alcohol ingested
00:35:02.660during the last carefree pub crawl of their lives, a bro neighbor who insisted on sharing
00:35:08.240rambling anecdotes with every reporter who knocked on his door, and frat brothers who
00:35:13.420were rumored to be stoked up on steroids and driven by long gestating grievances, all were
00:35:19.300callously and persistently slandered with a malicious authority. It got so madcap that a
00:35:26.200history prof at the university decided she had to sue to put an end to one internet sleuth's
00:35:32.200bizarre speculation that a failed romance with one of the women had driven the teacher to kill.
00:35:39.800And then the analysts hit a gold seam.
00:35:49.080The overnight assistant manager, her name at her request remains secret, for a gas station
00:35:56.580on Troy Road, not far from the house on King Road, had decided she might as well see what
00:36:01.820she could do. She had not been working the night of the murders, but nevertheless, she spent the
00:36:07.120downtime on her graveyard shift, reviewing the videos recorded by the station's surveillance
00:36:13.000cameras on November 13th. I had a weird feeling, she later said. For two nights, she intermittently
00:36:21.740kept at it, but found nothing. Then on the third night, she spotted a white car speeding down
00:36:28.440Highway 8 before turning pell-mell down a side street. She took a screenshot of the car and
00:36:34.220emailed it to the tip line address. Two days later, Moscow police arrived at the gas station
00:36:39.800to confiscate hours of surveillance footage. And after just a quick view, they began to feel the
00:36:46.120hunt was on. Encouraged, they reached out on a hunch to Kane Franzich. Recently retired and now
00:36:53.480investing in real estate, was a freewheeling guy who shares on his website that he listens to
00:36:58.280classic vinyl while drinking single malt scotch. He also owned a six-unit rental complex on Linda
00:37:05.540Lane, about three-tenths of a mile from where the bodies had been found, with a surveillance camera
00:37:10.180fixed to the roof. I downloaded it and gave them access to everything from 2 a.m. through noon
00:37:17.440on Sunday the 13th, he said. Once those tapes were reviewed, the same telltale white car
00:37:23.440was spotted. And again, it appeared to be making a breakneck getaway through the dark AM streets.
00:37:31.320With this confirming sighting, a different pace, a different mood took over the investigation.
00:37:37.160The team felt they could now march forward with a purpose.
00:37:40.900The FBI laboratory enhancement had succeeded in deciphering the blurred image of the car.
00:37:46.860They believed it was a white 2011 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra.
00:37:52.300And there were 22,000 Hyundai's in the region that matched the search criteria.
00:37:59.080And one of them, the police were starting to suspect, had been driven by a killer.
00:38:04.200From the affidavit released in January, quote,
00:38:08.240A review of footage from multiple videos obtained from the King Road neighborhood
00:38:12.280showed multiple sightings of suspect vehicle one, starting at 3.29 a.m., ending at 4.20 a.m.
00:38:20.700These sightings show Suspect Vehicle 1 makes an initial three passes by the 1122 King Road residence and then leaves via Wallen to drive.
00:38:30.620Based off my experience as a patrol officer, this is a residential neighborhood with a very limited number of vehicles that travel in the area during the early morning hours.
00:38:39.800Upon review of the video, there are only a few cars that enter and exit this area during this time frame.
00:38:45.860Suspect Vehicle 1 can be seen entering the area a fourth time at approximately 4.04 a.m.
00:38:53.100It can be seen driving eastbound on King Road, stopping and turning around in front of 500 Queen Road, number 52, and then driving back westbound on King Road.
00:39:04.440When Suspect Vehicle 1 is in front of the King Road residence, it appeared to unsuccessfully attempt to park or turn around in the road.
00:39:12.720The vehicle then continued to the intersection of Queen Road and King Road, where it can be seen completing a three-point turn and then driving eastbound again down Queen Road.
00:39:23.420Suspect vehicle one is seen, next, departing the area of the King Road residence at approximately 4.20 a.m. at a high rate of speed.
00:39:37.640Finding the one Elantra that would lead to an arrest loomed as a needle in a haystack sort of challenge.
00:39:44.460The search, even with a small army of burrowers, was a nearly impossible task.
00:39:50.180Then, as the holiday season approached, a hint of a Christmas miracle.
00:39:55.760Chief Fry, for once upbeat, met late in the morning of December 20th with Rand Walker,
00:40:02.400the department psychologist, and Rod Ulps, one of the police chaplains in the courthouse
00:40:07.120law library. It was one of the few places they could huddle where the chief felt no one would
00:40:11.680be listening. I'm going to need you two to get ready, he said with a deliberate coyness. I'm
00:40:17.360going to need you before too long. The two men eagerly asked whether there had been a break in
00:40:22.460the case. Fry did his best to rein in a pregnant smile. All I'm saying, he reiterated, is I need
00:40:29.040you both to stand by. I might be calling you very soon. But at 4.30 that afternoon, the Moscow
00:40:36.100police public communications team issued a flash update, quote, investigators are aware of a Hyundai
00:40:42.240Elantra located in Eugene, Oregon, and have spoken with the owner. The vehicle is not believed to
00:40:49.760have any relation to any property in Moscow, Idaho, or the ongoing murder investigations.
00:40:55.160And just like that, the psychologist and the chaplain knew that the chief, despite the hopeful conversation earlier that day, would not be calling them anytime soon.
00:41:06.520Meanwhile, as the hunt for the Elantra proceeded with tedious concentration, the no less discouraging challenge of finding a clue in the forensic evidence of vast muddle of prints, blood and DNA that had been collected in the house was brought vividly home.
00:41:24.000Body cam footage was released of a call at the King Road residence two months before the murders
00:41:29.580by a trio of Moscow cops in response to yet another noise complaint from an annoyed neighbor.
00:41:37.460The body camera footage, Bloom would write, was at first seen as deeply poignant. The house seemed
00:41:43.940to be nearly shaking with festive noise. Tyler Childress's feathered Indians boomed from the1.00
00:41:50.140speakers. Kids were calling happily to one another, a giddy mix of bouncy, energetic voices.
00:41:57.340It was a Thursday night and there was a party going on. This is what it's like to be young.
00:42:02.780To more acerbic minds, the footage was a small, self-contained story about the tensions of policing
00:42:08.920in a college town. The kids being kids were seen giving the police a sly runaround,
00:42:15.140and the cops being cops, retaliated with a display of petty vengeance.
00:42:20.500A confiscated stash of beers and Trulies was poured onto the driveway.0.79
00:42:26.280Yet this being Moscow and this house being destined for infamy,0.88
00:42:30.560this burst of class warfare would have an unexpected coda.
00:42:34.600One of the smirking cops spilling the booze
00:42:36.840would in time be part of the team that first discovered the bodies.
00:42:42.260Another would help load the cardboard cartons
00:42:44.360holding the murdered students' belongings
00:42:45.980into a U-Haul for the grim trip to the police parking lot.
00:42:51.100To the informed and dispassionate view
00:42:53.660of the FBI's scientific experts, however,
00:42:56.320the body cam footage was seen solely in operational terms
00:43:09.920and a stream of people were constantly coming and going.
00:43:14.360The analysts moaned that there would be so much forensic evidence, it might be easier to determine who in Moscow had never been inside the house, rather than their having any realistic hope of ever finding a suspect.
00:43:27.240And yet, perhaps it wasn't a 2011 to 2013 Elantra after all.
00:43:33.220Investigators were given access to video footage on the Washington State University, or WSU, campus located nearby in Pullman, Washington.
00:43:42.380A review of that video indicated that at approximately 2.44 a.m. on November 13, 2022, a white sedan, which was consistent with the description of the white Elantra, known as Suspect Vehicle 1, was observed on WSU surveillance cameras traveling north on Southeast Nevada Street at Northeast Stadium Way.
00:44:05.660At approximately 2.53 a.m., a white sedan, which is consistent with the description of the white Elantra known as Suspect Vehicle 1, was observed traveling southeast on Nevada Street in Pullman, Washington toward SR-270.
00:44:21.520This is Howard Bloom here quoting from the affidavit.
00:44:24.820SR-270 connects Pullman, Washington to Moscow, Idaho.
00:44:29.020This camera footage from Pullman, Washington was provided to the same FBI forensic examiner.
00:44:33.940The forensic examiner identified the vehicle observed in Pullman, Washington, as being a 2014 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra.
00:44:46.300At approximately 5.25 a.m., a white sedan, which was consistent with the description of suspect vehicle one, was observed on five cameras in Pullman, Washington, and on WSU campus cameras.
00:48:34.340Remember, according to the affidavit, the forensic examiner initially believed it to be a 2011 to 2013 Elantra.
00:48:42.020But after further review, amended that to make it 2011 to 2016.
00:48:47.060A car like this had been caught on surveillance video dashing about the neighborhood not far from King Road from the crime scene in the early morning hours immediately following the murders.
00:48:59.580Four days later, Daniel Tiango, a Washington State University police officer,
00:49:04.880was diligently spending the midnight hours on his quiet graveyard shift going through the inventory
00:49:10.380of white Elantras registered at the university, and up popped one belonging to a Brian Kohlberger.
00:49:18.260A half an hour later, another WSU officer drove over to the graduate student parking lot
00:49:23.820and eyeballed the vehicle, only to discover the car now had Washington state plates,
00:49:30.680not Pennsylvania anymore. Later in the still new morning, this morsel of intelligence,
00:49:36.760interesting, but certainly nothing provocative, was passed on to Corporal Brett Payne,
00:49:42.240the gung-ho former Army MP who was the Moscow police's lead investigator.
00:49:48.420Payne dutifully typed the car's registration details into the motor vehicle's record system
00:49:53.020and the screen quickly displayed a photograph of Brian Koberger as well as his state driver's
00:49:59.800license information. The license revealed that Koberger is a white male and a sturdy six feet
00:50:06.520and 185 pounds, but it was the photograph that held Payne's studious gaze. He swiftly zeroed in
00:50:14.220on the eyebrows. They were bushy and that, Payne realized with a mounting sense of triumph,
00:50:21.100was precisely the sort of telltale clue he had been praying for over the past two weeks.
00:50:27.080For all along, since the very first days of this grim case,
00:50:30.940he and the small inner circle of investigators had been guarding an explosive secret.
00:50:39.420Dylan Mortensen, one of the two 19-year-old surviving roommates, had seen the killer.
00:50:45.340At a little past 4 a.m., just about when the detectives theorized the four students had been hacked to death, she had heard a plaintiff cry.
00:50:56.720Anxious, she opened the door to her second floor room and saw someone, a man dressed ominously in black, was walking toward her.
00:51:04.680He was, she would vividly recall, the details forever etched deep in her memory, at least 5 feet 10, not bulked up, but still trim like an athlete.
00:51:15.340And he wore a mask that covered his mouth and nose, but not his eyes or his eyebrows.
00:51:21.580A profound and vehement fear seized hold of her.
00:51:25.100A, quote, frozen shock phase was how she would try to describe her galloping emotions.
00:51:30.840But the black clad intruder continued past her as if she were invisible and headed toward a sliding glass door that led out of the house.
00:51:40.420For reasons that continued to be bound tight with the bands of mystery, Dylan returned to her room, locked the door, and did not emerge until after 11 a.m.
00:51:52.720Only then did she summon friends who, in a state of full-blown panic, at last called 911.
00:51:59.720But as she later related her unnerving experience to police interrogators, she shared one detail that at the time seemed small, if not irrelevant.
00:58:04.700On November 13th, 2022, at approximately 2.42 a.m., the 8458 phone was utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to 1630 Northeast Valley Road, Apartment G201, Pullman, Washington, hereafter the Kohlberger residence.
00:58:20.740At approximately 2.47 a.m., the 8458 phone utilized cellular resources that provide coverage southeast of the Kohlberger residence, consistent with the 8458 phone leaving the Kohlberger residence and traveling south through Pullman, Washington.
00:58:37.400This is consistent with the movement of the white Elantra.
00:58:40.760At approximately 2.47 a.m., the 8458 phone stops reporting to the network, which is consistent with either the phone being in an area without cellular coverage, the connection to the network is disabled, such as putting the phone in airplane mode, or that phone is turned off.
00:59:00.100The 8458 phone does not report to the network again until approximately 4.48 a.m.,
00:59:07.260at which time it utilized cellular resources that provide coverage
00:59:10.900to Idaho State Highway 95 south of Moscow, Idaho, near Blaine, Idaho.
00:59:16.840Between 4.50 a.m. and 5.26 a.m., the phone utilizes cellular resources
00:59:21.740that are consistent with the 8458 phone traveling south
00:59:25.320on Idaho State Highway 95 to Genesee, Idaho.
00:59:29.180then traveling west toward Uniontown, Idaho, then north back to Pullman, Washington.
00:59:34.780At approximately 5.30 a.m., the 8458 phone is utilizing resources that provide coverage
00:59:41.060to Pullman, Washington, and consistent with the phone traveling back to the Kohlberger residence.
00:59:47.520The 8458 phone's movements are consistent with the movements of the white Elantra that is
00:59:52.560observed traveling north on Stadium Drive at approximately 5.27 a.m. Based on a review of
00:59:59.840the 8458 phone's estimated locations and travel, the 8458 phone's travel is consistent with that
01:00:05.800of the White Elantra. Further review indicated that the 8458 phone utilized cellular resources
01:00:11.440on November 13, 2022 that are consistent with the 8458 phone leaving the area of the Kohlberger
01:00:19.380residents at approximately 9 a.m. and traveling to Moscow, Idaho. Specifically, the 8458 phone
01:00:28.000utilized cellular resources that would provide coverage to the King Road residents between 9.12
01:00:33.780a.m. and 9.21 a.m. The 8458 phone next utilized cellular resources that are consistent with the
01:00:41.0608458 phone traveling back to the area of the Kohlberger residents and arriving to the area
01:17:30.180In the antsy days following the Kohlberger's arrival, at last, in the Poconos on the afternoon of December 16,
01:17:37.500the Moscow police suffered through variable moods.
01:17:40.140There were bursts when there was no denying that a great push forward was underway.
01:17:46.160Corporal Brett Payne, the PD's lead investigator, obtained a search warrant.
01:17:51.140And then a day later, on December 23rd, he received those records of Kohlberger's cell phone for the 24 hours before and after the homicides, the ones we told you about earlier when we were quoting from the affidavit.
01:18:05.000Just as the case was nearing the finish line,
01:18:07.200cops in Moscow moaned they had no choice
01:18:09.680but to hand it off to the Pennsylvania State Police.
01:18:13.480Kohlberger was now on the Stadies playing field.
01:18:17.100They'd be the ones who would take the ball over the goal line.
01:18:20.720Major Chris Parris had been handpicked by the FBI0.99
01:18:23.340to run the op for the Stadies, and he was a shrewd choice.1.00
01:19:27.940It just depends on the preconceived notions that influence your judgment.
01:19:32.600A little harder to dismiss, though, is Kohlberger's sneaking over to deposit some trash in a neighbor's garbage pail at around 4 a.m. one morning.
01:19:42.140Getting rid of incriminating evidence or just a bit of mischief.
01:19:46.800Once again, evil is in the eye of the beholder.
01:19:50.700But all this was before the great trash robbery.
01:22:12.500Pennsylvania agents recovered the trash from the Kohlberger family residence located
01:22:17.140in Albright's Vale, PA. That evidence was sent to the Idaho State Lab for testing.
01:22:23.580On December 28, 2022, the Idaho State Lab reported that a DNA profile obtained from the trash and the
01:22:31.300DNA profile obtained from the sheath identified a male as not being excluded as the biological
01:22:37.880father of suspect profile. At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be
01:22:48.160excluded from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father. And here is CeCe Moore
01:22:54.380on the trash poll. This is pretty common when investigative genetic genealogy has pointed law1.00
01:23:00.420enforcement toward a certain individual or family, and they'll do what's called a trash poll. If they
01:23:06.040can't just follow that person and pick something up that they dropped, then they'll typically resort
01:23:10.620to waiting for that person to put their trash out on the curb. And most states allow this. It's
01:23:16.040considered abandoned at that point. And then they go through the trash and try to find an item that
01:23:21.420might have DNA on it. But when it's a home like this, a household where there's multiple people,
01:23:25.980they don't know exactly whose DNA they're going to get. More from Bloom. Dynamic entry is only
01:23:32.260to use to serve an arrest warrant when the threat matrix is code red. You go in with overwhelming
01:23:37.820force, pounding down the doors, breaking windows, and setting off explosive devices.
01:23:43.040The strategy is meant not just to surprise the suspect, but also to scare the living daylights
01:23:47.740out of him. Because there's one thing that's always rising up in the mind of any tactical
01:23:51.620cop charging through the front door. If the target's waiting inside to ambush you, it doesn't
01:23:56.740matter too much what sort of tactics you use. This is his turf. He has the advantage. And if he's
01:24:02.620determined not to give up without a fight, bad things can happen. At just after midnight on
01:24:08.600December 30, a Pennsylvania State Police Special Emergency Response Team, or CERT, S-E-R-T,
01:24:15.860assembled at the Gray Barn Lake Troop End Barracks in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. There were about 24 of
01:24:22.660them. The usual 16 entry team members and maybe eight sharpshooters and they were packing. Glock
01:24:29.52040 caliber pistols were generally the weapon of choice and the point men as a rule carried two
01:24:34.900pistols. Those who would be the first through the door were also armed with stubby black HK MP5
01:24:40.940submachine guns. It was a brutal weapon particularly in an enclosed space. The backups had short
01:24:47.760barreled Remington 870 12 gauges. It was a shotgun meant for killing, not wounding.
01:24:53.600And over military style camo uniforms, they wore heavy load bearing tactical body armor fitted out
01:25:00.200with level four strike plates. The early morning arrest of Brian Kohlberger would be a code red op
01:25:06.360dynamic entry all the way. It was so quiet. It seemed as if the cocking of a single rifle would
01:25:12.660rouse people from their slumber. But then all hell broke loose. A door flew off its hinges,
01:25:18.800windows shattered, explosive charges boomed. The CERT team stormed the stunned Kohlberger's
01:25:24.580white clappered home. In the end, without a single shot being fired, Brian Kohlberger was let off
01:25:31.320in handcuffs. I recognize the frustration with the lack of information that's been released.
01:25:37.460However, providing any details in this criminal investigation might have tainted the upcoming criminal prosecution or alerted the suspect of our progress.
01:25:47.880Mr. Kohlberger was taken into custody without incident.
01:25:51.740The scene was turned over to the FBI evidence response team for processing.
01:25:56.340Mr. Kohlberger was then turned over to the Monroe County prison where he has remained in their custody since.
01:26:02.340On January 4th, shackled and in a red jumpsuit,
01:26:06.520Kohlberger was flown in a tiny fixed-wing single-engine Pilatus across the country.
01:26:11.580The plane landed at Moscow Pullman Regional Airport,
01:26:15.020the same airport where, only about three weeks earlier,
01:26:17.780Michael Kohlberger had arrived in anticipation of a convivial road trip with his son.
01:26:23.240But as Bloom writes, nothing in this case would be easy.
01:31:07.580Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, everyone.
01:31:09.320I'm Megan Kelly, and welcome to episode three of a special edition of the show focused on the
01:31:14.940fascinating and disturbing case of Brian Kohlberger and the quadruple murder in a sleepy college Idaho
01:31:20.980town last year. We started the week diving into the gruesome stabbings and got to know the victims
01:31:26.940a bit. Yesterday, we walked through how Kohlberger was identified and the incredible series of events
01:31:32.560that led to his arrest. Today, we take a look at who Brian Kohlberger is, the man accused of this
01:31:41.140barbaric crime, atrocities which he denies having anything to do with. As we bring you that story,
01:31:47.940we are thrilled to rely in part on the fantastic writing and reporting by journalist and author
01:31:53.240Howard Bloom, who covered the Idaho murders in great detail for Air Mail News. Bloom's forthcoming
01:31:59.260book on the case will be published in the spring by HarperCollins. Brian Christopher Kohlberger
01:32:08.500is 28 years old, but the quotes I read you at the beginning of this episode are from way back in
01:32:15.9402011 when he was just 16. It has been reported by multiple outlets, including Bloom in airmail,
01:32:23.740that Koberger wrote often on an early social media platform called Tap-A-Talk.
01:32:30.140He described a condition he had, or claimed to have, known as visual snow.
01:32:36.060It's something I discussed with Bloom when he was a guest on the Megyn Kelly show in March. Watch.
01:32:42.160Doctors can't even agree on whether visual snow is a psychological state or a disease.
01:32:48.960And since they can't agree on what it is, they also differ on how to treat it or if it can be treated.
01:32:56.380What the best sources I found for any insight into this are really in novels.
01:33:03.600Camus the Stranger opens up with a character who talks about feeling nothing that eventually leads to a murder on the beach.
01:33:11.560Sartre, in one of his novels, writes about a character that has the same sort of disassociation from the world. It's, you know, it's existentialism on one level, and it's also dislocation from the world on another.
01:33:31.360And if everything means less than zero, as Elvis Costello sings, then you can do anything.
01:33:39.620Anything is unjustified because it doesn't matter.
01:33:42.300From Bloom's reporting, they are the raw, bedeviling forces that drove him, he explains, to contemplate suicide.
01:33:50.240They are the painful demons, he wails to a friend, that drove him to search for a sort of relief by mainlining heroin.
01:33:56.460And at the root of all his swirling emotions, he diagnoses in the online postings with an
01:34:02.620unwavering certainty, is visual snow. Visual snow is a rare but very real and chronic neurological
01:34:09.600condition. To those who suffer from it, the world is viewed through a glass darkly. It's like looking
01:34:15.840at a television screen and the pictures fluttering. The image is obscured by amorphous grayish waves
01:35:05.220I have completely disconnected from reality.
01:35:08.220I feel all the time that I'm living in my own reality.
01:35:11.520It seems as if my brain chemistry is altered from this, even though I am certain it's not.
01:35:17.000First, I felt very uninterested in the things I usually like to do.
01:35:20.500But then it changed to the point I saw no reason for anything, and everything became boring to me.
01:35:26.440It'd feel at times completely disconnected.
01:35:29.900And as if I can't live like a normal person.
01:35:33.660When I think about my future, I think about how I will barely remember my mother and father, etc.
01:35:39.420Because I have an altered memory and also have been unable to think of them due to the 10 things I think about non-stop all at once.
01:35:48.940Visual snow, altered brain, tinnitus, disappointment, regret, etc.
01:35:57.020I think that possibly I could have brought this onto myself from post-traumatic stress disorder or something similar, but I can't tell what it is.
01:36:05.540I remember how it was before and remember that I felt like it before.
01:49:32.340So what should we make of Kohlberger's interest in criminology
01:49:36.340and his attempts to work with local police?
01:49:39.380It's a question I asked CIA officer and expert in deception, Phil Houston, earlier this year.
01:49:45.380In my mind, this fits into the category of what we call countermeasure behavior.
01:49:50.280So it's starting out, you know, very early.
01:49:52.880And what I mean by early is there's still months off from a killing.
01:49:56.840But in his mind, he may well have had something in his mind that he was going to do that was bad.
01:50:03.980So joining the police department or having some connection by the police department in his mind might very likely have served two purposes.
01:50:13.340First of all, from the persuasion context, it's he's an insider now.
01:50:19.580Why would anyone look at him, you know, immediately as the, you know, the the perpetrator?
01:50:25.520And then secondly, if he's inside, it's possible he may get some access to what's going on in the investigation, to details of the investigation that may give him some more early warning if the police do start to, you know, zero in on him.
01:50:47.860It does not appear Kohlberger ever landed that police internship. However, he did have a meeting with the chief of police.
01:50:55.520Inside Edition obtained an email exchange between Kohlberger and Gary Jenkins, the top cop in Pullman, Washington at the time.
01:51:03.960Quote, it was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety, wrote Kohlberger.
01:51:12.940Great to meet and talk to you as well, responded Jenkins.
01:51:16.840Jenkins would go on to take a job as the campus chief of police at Washington State University,
01:51:21.700the force that would later help identify Kohlberger's vehicle as the one police believed
01:51:26.680was seen leaving the murder site that evening. After the murders, Kohlberger may have returned
01:51:32.600to an old habit, posting about himself online. You see, there was massive interest in this case
01:51:39.820online and several reporters believe Kohlberger himself was among the crew on social media
01:52:13.680they found the sheath. He wrote, this was before there were public reports that police
01:52:20.700had indeed found the knife sheath inside that house. Meanwhile, on Reddit, in the Moscow
01:52:27.840Murders Group, Moscow being the town where the killings took place, one user named Inside
01:52:33.620Looking seemed to have inside details about the method behind the murders. Quote, speculation,
01:52:40.280it began. Quote, killer parked behind the house, approached property through tree line,
01:52:47.620entered sliding door and left it open, committed murders and exited sliding door. One knife,
01:52:54.440according to the coroner's statement. Time of murder, approximately 3.20 a.m. to 3.40 a.m.,
01:53:01.340according to car fleeing scene and on camera on Highway 8, approximately 3.45 a.m. Vehicle left
01:53:08.260skid marks upon exit, end quote. Since Kohlberger was arrested and held without bail, Papa Roger
01:53:16.340and Inside Looking have not posted on Facebook or Reddit.
01:53:27.220As one might suspect, Brian Kohlberger's troubles were not limited to his head. His interactions
01:53:33.600with women were awkward and at times inappropriate, as we alluded to earlier. There were reports of
01:53:41.300him getting kicked out of a high school vocational law enforcement program after complaints from
01:53:46.240several girls. Creepy interactions with women in college. And more recently, Dateline of NBC1.00
01:53:53.040reported Kohlberger befriended a female colleague at Washington State who contacted him after she
01:53:58.720thought someone had broken into her apartment. Kohlberger helped her, reports NBC, by installing
01:54:05.540security cameras at her place. According to Dateline, authorities believed it was Kohlberger
01:54:11.440himself who had broken into that apartment and that he installed the cameras so that he would
01:54:17.380be able to spy on this young woman, or perhaps something even more sinister. Former FBI criminal
01:54:24.800profiler, Candace DeLong, was a guest on this program in January 2023, and she had this to
01:54:30.520say about Kohlberger and women. One of the things I find interesting and possibly telling, a lot of
01:54:39.320female friends from high school, college, and even recently in his grad program
01:54:45.000um talk about him various things to say no former girlfriend or former intimate person
01:54:55.920has come forward possibly because you know it could be oh my gosh you know i was i wrong to
01:55:02.980be involved with this guy but i wonder if he simply hasn't had an intimate relationship
01:55:12.800a romantic relationship. And the reason I think that is, without question, this was a targeted
01:55:23.940murder. And one of the victims, the two blondes, was brutalized, stabbed many more times than the
01:55:36.260other one. I think she was probably the target. One of the things that I think of regarding,0.75
01:55:45.840pardon me, motivation is, was this motive? There was no sexual assault,
01:55:52.260but there was certainly a display of anger and rage and possibly revenge. There are many murders
01:56:04.260And it's happening more lately by men murdering women in this way. Angers, multiple stab wounds. It's not, it's rarely a gunshot. It's a stabbing someone, of course, is in their face, personal, I hate you, I hate you, that kind of thing.
01:56:39.200So no lovers that we know of, nevermind girlfriends, but what of his family?
01:56:44.420His mother, Marianne, worked at the same local school district as his father.
01:56:48.000She was an aide for special needs students.
01:56:50.640He has two older sisters, Amanda and Melissa, the latter of whom was a mental health therapist.
01:56:57.940Some reports indicate that both sisters were fired from their jobs after Brian's arrest.
01:57:03.300And what about his father, the maintenance worker, the one who flew out to make that long trip across the country with Brian as the FBI was tracking him?
01:57:12.100More here from my interview with Howard Bloom.
02:02:45.660What is the case, legally speaking, against Brian Kohlberger?
02:02:49.400What are the key components you should expect prosecutors to lean on when they get in front of a jury?
02:02:54.060And keep in mind, we are going to get to watch as all of this plays out.
02:02:58.560The judge has agreed to televise this trial.
02:03:02.020Now, it will be with courtroom cameras and without media, but America will have a front row seat for the people versus Brian Kohlberger.
02:03:14.940It may sound like an open and shut case for the prosecution, but trial attorney after trial attorney, seasoned pros, have been warning us all year, not so fast, that this case is far from a slam dunk for prosecutors.
02:03:56.560Mr. Kohlberger, the statement goes on, has been accused of very serious crimes,
02:04:00.260but the American justice system cloaks him in a veil of innocence.
02:04:03.700He should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise, not tried in the court of public opinion.
02:04:09.020One should not pass judgment about the facts of the case unless and until a fair trial in court, at which time all sides may be heard and inferences challenged.
02:04:19.240LaBarre told NBC's Today Show that Brian believes he will be exonerated.
02:04:24.900He believes he's going to be exonerated.
02:17:22.060And I'm never a big fan of eyewitness identification cases.
02:17:25.520But when you start to put it all together, it is starting to look that way.
02:17:29.440Now, you're right. At this point, it's not a slam dunk. It looks very much like it's moving in that direction. But that's why they're continuing to investigate. And, you know, of course, they're going to turn his apartment upside down. They're going to turn this crime scene upside down. And we're going to see a lot more in days to come.
02:17:46.760Go ahead, Mark. What are your thoughts on all that?
02:17:48.940I don't disagree with Marcia. I think that you've got, to me, it's probable cause all day long.
02:17:55.340However, I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's so many holes in this.
02:18:00.440I've had, I can't tell you the number of murder cases that have turned out that cell phone evidence ended up exonerating my client as opposed to showing that he was guilty.
02:18:14.580The view as I'm sitting right here, I could be using my phone and it could be pinging onto two towers 12 miles away from each other just by virtue of the amount of traffic on one of the towers.
02:18:30.260So I've never been a fan of the cell phone triangulation.
02:18:33.820It's a good tool to try to get you there.
02:18:36.920But I've used it to show that somebody was 40 miles away at the time of the crime and exonerated them.
02:18:43.700So that's not going to that's not going to get him there.
02:18:46.780They also the fact that the phone was not being used during the two hour period.
02:18:52.940I know law enforcement speculates that he turned it off.
02:18:56.140There's other explanations like he wasn't there.
02:18:59.080So those kinds of things, you get jury instructions to say two reasonable alternatives.
02:19:03.660You got to pick the one that points towards innocence.
02:31:51.000with what the defense team is exploring,
02:31:52.500the more the trail led inexorably to drugs.
02:31:56.420We know about Kohlberger's past drug use.
02:32:00.860We also know from a variety of reporting that the area where the murders took place was a hotbed of drug activity.
02:32:07.400Then last March, a former University of Idaho frat president, a 22-year-old journalism major in his junior year, died.
02:32:16.640And in the aftermath of his sad and needless demise, new avenues of speculation multiplied, spreading out in previously unexplored and surprising directions.
02:32:26.420it was spring break and Caden Young was looking to score and he succeeded only to pay with his
02:32:39.880life that is a thumbnail history of the events as detailed in the initial news stories however
02:32:45.700the voluminous police reports as well as a conversation with one of the detectives who
02:32:50.660had led the investigation and with a legal aid lawyer who subsequently got involved offer a more
02:32:55.880detailed account, one that introduces two new actors to Caden's story and perhaps to ours.
02:33:05.280There are a couple who quickly caught the defense team's rapt attention and continue to hold it
02:33:10.260like a magnet. It was all too common, another young life ravaged by fentanyl. And within days,
02:33:17.120it might very well have become simply another tragic statistic in a national body count that
02:33:21.660is climbing toward pandemic proportions. But then the police made two arrests in connection
02:33:27.320with Caden Young's death. Hurrying to room 214 of the Holiday Inn, where Young had first overdosed,
02:33:34.800the police arrested Emma Bailey, 22, of Moscow, and Demetrius Robinson, 36, of Tacoma, just as
02:33:43.720they were apparently preparing to leave. They were each charged with one count of conspiracy
02:33:48.500to commit a violation of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act.
02:33:52.660That is, they had allegedly supplied the student
02:37:02.040It is a touchstone, according to people familiar with their inquiries,
02:37:05.860that has the team digging deep into the possibility of narcotics trafficking along Greek Row in Moscow
02:37:13.600and wondering whether these furtive activities might have somehow played a part in the quadruple murders.
02:37:21.800What if anything they have uncovered is wrapped up tight by the iron bands of the gag order?
02:37:26.960The overview, offered by the Seattle DEA field office, is a tale of cutthroat international
02:37:32.340intrigue, a pipeline that runs from China, where the fentanyl precursor chemicals are
02:37:37.180produced, to the sinister Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico, which manufacture the drugs
02:37:43.100and then smuggle the too-often-lethal product to their distribution networks in northwestern
02:37:47.920urban hubs such as Seattle and Spokane.
02:37:51.260Then, with the eager help of a freelance army of small-time distributors, the tentacles of the octopus reach into the seemingly wholesome all-American counties and college towns, stretching across the great outdoors.
02:38:08.020But Sheriff Brett Myers, head of the Quad City Drug Task Force, a multi-jurisdictional team propped up in part by federal money, whose territory includes the university towns of Moscow and Pullman, offers a ground-level account.
02:38:20.860And it is enough to give anyone whose kid is heading off to college in the area the willies.
02:38:25.900Matter of factly, the sheriff shares that his task force is working with college kids in the local schools whom they've caught dealing MDMA and cocaine, flipping them and then using the students to go after the big local dealers.
02:38:43.380And once the scared, witless college kids have helped his team ID the foot soldiers,
02:38:49.140quote, we go up the ladder to get the people tied to the cartels in the cities.
02:38:55.060There are a lot of unanswered questions, he acknowledges.
02:38:59.140Pressed further about the quadruple murder of the Idaho students, he candidly goes on,
02:39:04.060could it have been a drug-related case? I can't rule it out.
02:39:07.600It's not improbable, he says, adding, from what I know, that would answer a lot of questions.
02:39:13.380But did any of the victims know these two accused drug dealers, Bailey and Robinson?
02:39:24.780Ashlyn Couch, then a University of Idaho senior, was an original signer of the lease, stay with me here, on the King Roadhouse with the others.
02:41:35.860And just down the hill from the housing complex, close enough for Bad Bunny to come rattling through its windows, was the Moscow police headquarters.
02:41:46.400Taking a seat next to Kohlberger that day was Beseth Salamjan, a laid-back, darkly handsome, off-and-on WSU undergraduate who was friends with Kohlberger's new neighbor, Martinez, who had invited Kohlberger to the party, as well as DJ Cartwright.
02:42:05.060Salaam John and Kohlberger got to talking.
02:42:08.080And while the details of their conversation have long been forgotten,
02:42:11.400Salaam John vividly remembers how, quote,
02:42:13.860the dude would talk chin up straight to my face.
02:49:03.600And if you go to megankelly.com and sign up there for our weekly email, we'll provide you with behind-the-scenes details on the reporting of this case.
02:49:15.240As with our previous episodes, today's features the writing and the reporting of legendary crime
02:49:22.860journalist and author Howard Bloom. Bloom has been reporting on this case for nearly a year.
02:49:28.440He's written compellingly about it for Air Mail News. His forthcoming book on the case will be
02:49:33.060published in the spring by HarperCollins. Keep that on your radar. But for now, big questions
02:49:38.920include the following. One, assuming it was Kohlberger, as the police allege, why? Why did
02:49:46.680he do it? What could his motive have been? Was he targeting a specific victim and then the crime
02:49:53.560spun out of control? Two, if it was Kohlberger, is it possible he had help? Could there be an
02:50:01.280accomplice in the picture here? And three, what about the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen
02:50:08.160and Bethany Funk. What did they see? Why didn't they call the police right away?
02:50:14.460And what are they up to now? As we tackle those questions, one name in particular stands out
02:50:19.560as a person who has been at the forefront of asking questions and pushing for answers.
02:50:25.420It's not a podcaster or a crime reporter, although there have been plenty of those too.
02:50:31.380It's a dad, a father with a deep and tragic connection to this story,
02:50:35.800The four victims in the case, Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Gonsalves, Zanna Kurnodal, and Maddie Mogan, all their parents have spoken out on behalf of their children, but one father in particular seems to have led the push for answers, and that is Steve Gonsalves, Kaylee's dad.
02:50:55.060Within weeks, he was out on all the national news channels.
02:50:58.300You can't imagine sending your girl to college and then they come back in a, you know, in a, in a, it was fast and nobody suffered and nobody felt like, like that kind of pain.
02:51:13.560Every day that goes by and you don't hear anything, what does that do?
02:51:17.320Just tells me statistically I'm going to have to do more work myself.
02:51:21.260I'm not going to sit here and just be a crybaby dad.
02:51:24.840It's going to be a cold case if we don't do something within the next week or two.
02:51:29.460He stayed on it, talking after Kohlberger's arrest and arraignment.
02:51:33.620I'm just like everyone else. I want to know exactly what's going on.
02:54:08.380Why had this nightmare enveloped his family's life?
02:54:10.880For his own peace of mind, he required a motive.
02:54:16.020And without this knowledge, nothing in his life from November 13th onward would ever make sense.
02:54:22.280He did posit to Court TV in June that perhaps jealousy was a factor.
02:54:28.500They're just two girls that were always happy, always filming.
02:54:32.240So I think maybe he just seen that happiness and there's something in him that was jealous of the fact that
02:54:38.680two people could love each other and be like the best friends and um i think that really rubbed him
02:54:45.940wrong and got you know got him thinking about why do they have this great life and i don't
02:54:51.720and i think that's whoever he picked that'll be the back story is uh just a jealousy of their
02:54:59.540their lifestyle steve remains open to the possibility that others might also have been
02:55:07.560involved here, according to texts provided to Bloom. It seems to Steve quite possible that there
02:55:14.380were more perpetrators in the house on King Road on the night his daughter and her friends were
02:55:18.140killed, and if there were, they must still be at large. He is furious that Kohlberger's trial,
02:55:25.460which had been scheduled to start on October 2nd, has been postponed indefinitely. He fears,
02:55:30.620he's complained, according to Bloom, that the trial will not occur for many months or even years,
02:55:34.900And he's particularly incensed by the no-nonsense gag order that severely limits what the law enforcement authorities, the lawyers, and even the families of the victims can publicly say about the case.
02:55:47.760It is not just that he deems this a violation of his fundamental constitutional rights.
02:55:53.320Rather, the paucity of specific intelligence has created a vacuum that is being filled by rumors, half-truths, and crackpot lies.
02:56:02.500And once these malignant seeds are planted, they grow tall and wild on the Internet.
02:56:10.860And so despite the arrest of a suspect, he has not abandoned his quest.
02:56:15.560He has a clear mission, as he told News Nation in May.
02:56:18.740I feel like we have a mission, we have a job to do, we have things that have to happen.
02:56:22.440And when I see those things happening, that helps me understand that we're going in the right direction.
02:56:29.480And that's always better than just sitting and waiting for who knows what's going to happen.
02:56:38.480And it's not simply vanity, the belief that one middle-aged guy with only a background in IT can get to the bottom of things in a special way.
02:56:48.460It's fear that propels him, the fear that if he waits passively for the cops finally to share what little they have managed to uncover, it might be too late.
02:56:56.960the remaining unidentified perpetrators will have gone to ground and justice will not be secured
02:57:03.700nor will he ever get the terrible satisfaction of knowing the whole story he will never achieve
02:57:09.180the state of grace that comes he wants to believe with understanding a motive he will never know
02:57:15.360the answer to the question at the beating heart of this case why and so for the past year he has
02:57:22.380plowed on. It has not been easygoing or always fruitful. For one cruel example, early on,
02:57:29.700an enticing tip came his way, according to the texts from a source he described as a, quote,
02:57:34.660jailhouse snitch. That's who gave him the tip. It was a tale that offered to tie up all the loose
02:57:41.100ends of the case, and spurred on by that promise, both Steve and the private detective he had hired
02:57:46.100fanned out with their inquiries into several states, energized by the intoxicating possibility
02:57:51.640that he was on the verge of accomplishing what the professionals had failed to do.
02:57:56.140But in the bitter end, it was nothing more than an elaborate con,
02:58:00.740a malicious scheme to squeeze some money out of a grieving family's misery.
02:58:45.000News Nation's Brian Enten asked prosecutor Bill Thompson
02:58:48.120in November, 2022, if drugs were involved
02:58:51.420in the case and the veteran d.a made no bones about the answer could drugs be involved in all
02:58:59.320of this i have not heard that there's any suspicion that drugs played a role in the killings
02:59:04.320so not like a drug deal gone bad or something like that i am not aware of anything like that no
02:59:09.720what else did steve learn as he did his own investigation into his daughter's murder
02:59:18.260Kohlberger had purchased a dark blue Dickies long sleeve work uniform at the Walmart in Pullman, Washington, not long before the murders was one thing he learned.
02:59:29.820The authorities had a copy of the $49.99 receipt, and they also now had a theory to explain how Kohlberger had managed to escape from the crime scene without a scratch and without leaving an incriminating drop of blood in his getaway car or his apartment.
02:59:46.480Perhaps he had worn the work uniform during the murders
02:59:48.880and then had disrobed before he got behind the wheel
02:59:51.800of his Hyundai Elantra for his circuitous drive
03:00:11.780just as they could not locate the murder weapon.
03:00:15.160They had a receipt for a K-Bar knife he had purchased, Brian, online, months before the killings, but this too had seemingly vanished.
03:00:26.440And as long as these two crucial pieces of evidence remained unavailable, what the killer wore and what the killer used,
03:00:34.540Steve feared the building case against Kohlberger would remain more open than shut.
03:00:39.840Even more troubling, if true, was what Steve had learned from people who had spoken to members of
03:00:43.960the grand jury who had been presented with the prosecution's case. It centered on the alleged
03:00:49.180behavior of the two roommates who had miraculously survived the night unscathed. We made a reference
03:00:55.140to it earlier. How, he wondered, could they have been so blissfully unaware, sleeping? Through the
03:01:01.920savage pre-dawn stabbing murders of four people in a narrow house with paper-thin walls.
03:01:08.960Steve had been told that the two survivors allegedly had not only been awake while the killings had taken place, but that they had heard everything.
03:01:19.320More astonishingly, his grand jury sources alleged that the two girls had been texting one another as the murderer methodically went from one room to the next.
03:01:30.420Of course, if that's true, police will have seen the records.
03:01:34.520All of those texts will have been recorded.
03:01:36.560The possibility that two people had a sense of the horror while it occurred and had not acted, calling neither friends nor 911, left Steve floored.
03:01:48.380And no less confounding, they had, if his sources were as knowledgeable as he believed, then let hour after hour tick away before they finally decided to summon friends.
03:01:58.860It added an entirely new band of mystery to a crime that was already bound by so many unanswered questions.
03:02:06.320Wracked by frustration and despair, all Steve could do was send a disheartened text to one
03:02:12.340of his fellow internet detectives, quote, there is so much more to this story than is in the media.
03:02:17.900The time gap between when at least one roommate heard and possibly saw the intruder and when 9-1-1
03:02:25.160was called remains one of the strangest things about this case. Why neither Dylan nor Bethany,
03:02:32.820who was also home that night, called 911 until more than seven hours after the murders
03:02:37.660remains unclear. In the end, while we do not know precisely who made the 911 call,
03:02:43.740we know it was not ultimately one of those roommates who called the police at all. It was
03:02:48.260a friend calling from Dylan Mortensen's phone. Murders around 4 a.m. and no phone call until
03:02:55.600almost noon. Sure, it was a weekend. College kids, they sleep late and tend to sleep soundly.
03:03:02.820but we have to go back to the affidavit where we learned that while roommate Bethany Funk was
03:03:08.040sleeping through the entire ordeal, at least according to what she told police, Dylan Mortensen
03:03:12.660was awake. A reminder, here's what we learned. And the initials DM are for Dylan Mortensen.
03:03:19.960DM stated, this is from the police affidavit. She originally went to sleep in her bedroom on
03:03:24.300the Southeast side of the second floor. DM stated she was awoken at approximately 4 AM
03:03:29.720by what she stated sounded like Gonsalves playing with her dog
03:03:33.760in one of the upstairs bedrooms, which were located on the third floor.
03:03:38.220A short time later, DM said she heard who she thought was Gonsalves
03:03:42.420say something to the effect of, there's someone here.
03:03:46.660A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Zanna Kurnodal's phone
03:03:51.400show this could also have been Kurnodal,
03:03:55.400as her cellular phone indicated she was likely awake
03:03:58.160and using TikTok at approximately 4.12 a.m.
03:04:03.680DM stated she looked out of her bedroom
03:04:05.480but did not see anything when she heard the comment
03:04:24.560At approximately 4.17 a.m., a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately to the northwest of 1122 King Road, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud.
03:04:43.500A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4.17 a.m.
03:04:48.440The security camera is less than 50 feet from the west wall of Kernodal's bedroom.
03:04:53.380room. DM stated she opened her door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure
03:05:00.980clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking toward her.
03:05:06.840DM described the figure as 5'10 or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with
03:05:12.360bushy eyebrows. The male walked past DM as she stood in a, quote, frozen shock phase, end quote.
03:05:20.860The mail walked toward the back sliding glass door. DM locked herself in her room after seeing
03:05:27.060the mail. DM did not state that she recognized the mail. This leads investigators to believe
03:05:32.420that the murderer left the scene. So a frozen shock phase, that appears to be the phrase given
03:05:40.860by Dylan to police as outlined in that affidavit. But what else do we know? First, very early on,
03:05:47.400questions about Dylan's actions that night became a public conversation, even among those closest to
03:05:52.260the victims. Initially, the attorney representing the Gonsalves family, Shannon Gray, defended
03:05:58.320Dylan's actions, saying that Dylan must have been scared to death and was still a victim in this
03:06:03.440case when he called into Fox News in January. No, no 911 calls. I mean, that raises a great
03:06:10.360many issues. How how are you kind of sorting that together? Well, you remember, she's a victim in
03:06:17.080this case. Everybody kind of forgets that. She is still a victim in this case. And the fact that
03:06:25.320she was able to give some additional identification, I think, is beneficial to the case. She was able
03:06:30.380to give kind of hype and build and what they looked like a little bit, bushy eyebrows, things0.98
03:06:37.200along those lines, and in regards to going back into her room. And she was scared. She was scared
03:06:43.360to death, and rightly so. But according to the Daily Mail, Ethan Chapin's sister-in-law posted
03:06:50.520on Reddit that Dee, which we understand to mean Dylan Mortensen, quote, supposedly called all the
03:06:58.060girls in the house after crying and screaming stopped, and no one answered, and she still0.79
03:07:04.260didn't call the police. She goes on, quote, she needs to explain herself and her actions that
03:07:12.040night. We don't have anything more from the sister-in-law on that, but you can bet if she
03:07:19.660knows something along these lines, she may be a witness. The reason Dylan and Bethany did not
03:07:30.800call 911 remains a mystery to this day, one of the biggest of the case. Perhaps it is what Dylan
03:07:36.180told police the next day that she was just paralyzed with fear for seven hours? Multiple
03:07:43.760reports suggest that we expect a trial. We will hear from both roommates in their own words as
03:07:50.060both women would likely testify. How helpful their testimony will be for the prosecution
03:07:55.140or the defense remains to be seen. Koberger's defense team tried to subpoena roommate Bethany0.89
03:08:01.320Funk in April to testify at Kohlberger's scheduled preliminary hearing. After fighting
03:08:06.940this subpoena, she eventually agreed to be interviewed at home in Nevada. The Kohlberger
03:08:12.280defense initially alleged that Bethany Funk had information that is, quote, exculpatory to the
03:08:18.200defendant, meaning potentially supportive of his innocence. We don't know why they might believe
03:08:24.160that or whether they really do. But what we do know is that if either roommate talks at trial,
03:15:52.080In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal
03:15:57.120offense with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience. To the
03:16:03.640average citizen, these questions may sound bizarre, but experts say it is not unusual for criminologists
03:16:10.040to want to better understand the criminals they study. Or maybe it's just the reason many criminals
03:16:17.040commit a murder. Maybe that's what was at issue here. Psychosis, rage, jealousy, untreated mental
03:16:27.960illness, or evil. As Howard Bloom writes at the end of one of his many excellent pieces on this
03:16:40.180case, maybe it was a matter of deep-seated envy and resentment from a man whose life had been
03:16:46.280plagued with anger, disconnection, and an inability to feel human. As Bloom writes,
03:16:52.920he yearned for the fun he saw at that house. Can you imagine looking at that wild night,
03:16:59.020all the happy frivolity from some hideout in the shadows, and at the same time knowing deep
03:17:04.540in your dark heart that you would never be a part of anything that exuberant, that beautiful?
03:17:10.440It would be hell, a hell of unsatisfied desire that could plunge someone deeper and deeper
03:17:15.960into a tormenting rage, an envy that would be an all-consuming sickness, and in the end there
03:17:22.260would be no way out, just the deed. There are other questions that remain in this case, like
03:17:29.680where the murder weapon is as we've gone over, and the clothes he must have worn. So far we believe
03:17:36.640the police may not have any of that evidence. Perhaps they were dumped along the oddly circuitous
03:17:44.100wooded drive Kohlberger allegedly took from the murders back home to WSU.
03:17:51.800As we look back on this case and this week, I want to leave you with some final thoughts from
03:17:56.620past guests who have been on this show about this case, this suspect, and what is to come.
03:18:03.020Couldn't imagine him not leaving DNA behind because it's such a violent crime scene.
03:18:07.520He stabbed four people multiple times. And the chances of either the knife not slipping and cutting him or one of those victims fighting back and potentially getting his DNA under their fingernails or just dropping a single hair seems highly unlikely to me.
03:18:24.920The sheath, if I'm the defense lawyer, does not bother me because somebody, you can have an
03:18:30.920explanation for that. There's an innocent explanation for that if it's on the button.
03:18:35.540Somebody else had the knife, obviously some other person. The bushy eyebrows, that doesn't bother
03:18:41.940me. If, in fact, as you posit that there is victim's DNA in his apartment, that's a real
03:18:50.460problem i don't know that it's game over but that's a real real problem when people hear dna
03:18:56.380nowadays they do get that largely it goes right and largely it doesn't uh tag somebody else you
03:19:03.720know it doesn't tag the wrong person and i'm sure they're going to be very careful in handling the
03:19:08.180samples i would imagine knowing that that's going to probably be the most significant evidence that
03:19:13.640they get and the kind you're talking about the defendant's uh dna all over the room the victim's
03:19:19.220DNA in his room, that sort of thing, that kind of combination is, I think it's a knockout
03:19:24.320punch if that's what they come up with.
03:19:25.860When those handcuffs went on, him, essentially, if he's the guy, his life is over.
03:19:58.660I believe Brian Kohlberger committed this crime.
03:20:01.980A life of darkness, deep unhappiness, and of being mentally unwell likely all contributed to a sick fascination with death and what he may have seen as the power that comes from taking a life.
03:20:13.200The phone, car, and touch DNA evidence may be enough,
03:20:17.080particularly when coupled with the fact that back home in Pennsylvania,
03:20:21.140Brian Kohlberger was disposing of his trash in the neighbor's garbage cans,
03:20:25.680and when police effected the arrest raid,
03:20:28.740they allegedly caught him wearing gloves,
03:20:31.620stuffing his own garbage into little Ziploc baggies.