The Megyn Kelly Show - The Crime Scene： Idaho College Murders and Bryan Kohberger, Megyn Kelly Show Special - Part One ｜ Ep. 688

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East. 0.97

00:00:13.140 Suppose you wanted to kill someone. That would be easy. There are lots of ways. 0.98

00:00:19.700 But suppose you wanted to kill four people, all in the same house, all within moments of one another, 0.92

00:00:25.800 and you chose to use a knife. That could help eliminate the noise, but it would require skill, 0.87

00:00:32.720 strength, and endurance. Murder is hard work, especially if people fight back.

00:00:39.820 Then there's the really big obstacle. You want to get away with it. You're determined to stab four

00:00:45.900 people living in a single home in the still of the night and then disappear without leaving a clue 0.98

00:00:52.200 to your identity. Now that's a more difficult challenge. But you did it. You have everybody

00:00:59.680 stumped. It's the perfect crime. Welcome to a special edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone.

00:01:07.580 I'm Megyn Kelly. And for the first time ever, I'm going to spend the episode today and all five

00:01:13.600 episodes this week taking you on a journey with just you and me as we dive into a true crime case

00:01:21.880 that has captivated the nation since it happened a little more than a year ago.

00:01:28.960 Ever since four young students in Idaho were found dead last November, I have consumed every podcast,

00:01:36.400 every article I could find about this case. I've watched all the true crime shows. I've read all

00:01:42.920 the magazine pieces, everything on the internet, and I've done my own reporting on the case,

00:01:47.620 interviewing experts and lawyers to try to make sense of what happened in Idaho. As we will explore

00:01:55.560 in each episode this week, there is something haunting and fascinating about the details of this

00:02:03.800 crime. It is a mystery, but it's really several mysteries all in one. In this series, I will bring

00:02:10.660 you some of our reporting, as well as the reporting and incredibly eloquent writing of Howard Bloom.

00:02:17.600 That was his writing at the top there. He is second to none when it comes to covering the Idaho murders.

00:02:23.380 This is the guy. That's the way this episode started with his words that he used to open his first

00:02:29.500 dispatch on this case for the media outlet, Air Mail News. It's relatively new and it's very good.

00:02:35.200 Bloom is a veteran and award-winning true crime writer and reporter who has written more than a

00:02:41.660 dozen books and countless articles in his decades-long career. He's done some of the best

00:02:46.300 and most unique reporting on this story. And his forthcoming book on this case will be published in

00:02:52.100 the spring by HarperCollins. That's going to be a must read. And it is Bloom's storytelling that we'll

00:02:58.900 begin with today. We asked Howard if we could strike a deal where we could use some of his,

00:03:04.600 not just his reporting, but his actual writing and intersperse it with our own so we could bring

00:03:09.060 you some of the interviews and soundbites and so on that we've amassed for you to tell this story.

00:03:15.240 And he agreed. It had been a football Saturday in mid-November, the last home game of the 2022 season

00:03:21.900 for the University of Idaho Vandals. The Kibbe Dome packed with more than 7,600 fans.

00:03:28.180 And despite the disappointing loss, Saturday night was still party night for a college

00:03:33.860 celebrated in knowledgeable polls as the best party school in the state. The stately row of

00:03:40.720 wet frats, as they're known on the U of Idaho campus, twisting along Nez Perce Drive, was crowded

00:03:48.180 with the brothers and their dates. High-spirited assemblies fueled by blaring music, prospects of

00:03:54.540 mischief and rivers of alcohol. Downtown Main Street was hopping too. The pool tables at Mingles

00:04:01.220 and the metal-sheathed bar at the Corner Club were shoulder-to-shoulder with students and townies

00:04:07.360 filling the brisk autumn night with the keen of cheery, rowdy, late-night fun.

00:04:12.140 And then in the heavy quiet of the new Sunday morning, four young corpses, all students,

00:04:20.440 all friends, were found hacked to death in their beds in a pale, clappered house, little

00:04:27.580 more than a stone's throw away from the heart of the university campus. There was so much

00:04:33.220 blood, it had seeped through the wooden floors and run down the building's gray concrete foundation

00:04:39.100 in jagged red rivulets. But before we get to that Sunday morning, we need to look back.

00:04:46.600 We need to talk about the six young students who were in the house that night and what brought

00:04:50.720 them there. Two of the six went way back. Maddie Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves met in 2013 in the

00:04:58.340 sixth grade and became inseparable. They grew up in the tourist town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho,

00:05:05.260 best friends for years. Listen to their parents talk about each of them.

00:05:10.100 Kaylee was one that was going to shake the world. I've yet to come across somebody who

00:05:14.400 has had anything negative to say, which people think, oh, no one would tell you that. But

00:05:19.320 I mean, I got siblings and they'll tell stories about their brother or their sister. They're not

00:05:27.260 going to hold back. So I think she found a way to live in a big family and learned the right ways

00:05:35.580 to get along with people. And that showed later on in her life when she was able to go to college and

00:05:42.680 meet all these people. Maddie Mogan, yes. She's just, she was the sweetest, smart, loving. She was the best.

00:05:53.540 She never caused me one day of stress in my life. You know, just she was the best child I could have

00:06:03.360 asked for. And yeah, we miss her so much.

00:06:08.720 The night of November 12th, Maddie and Kaylee went out together in Moscow to the Corner Club bar.

00:06:16.020 More on that in a minute. Ethan Chapin was in the house that night. He was a triplet.

00:06:20.860 He and his brother Hunter and sister Maisie all attended the University of Idaho. His girlfriend

00:06:27.300 was Zanna Kernodal. She had a tough upbringing, but she was thriving. Ethan and Zanna's parents.

00:06:35.160 He literally lit up every room. Every, everybody. He was friend to all.

00:06:45.760 He just, he was an incredible human. Zanna was, she was tough. She was, she was strong. She was funny.

00:07:01.220 She just, she just couldn't make you smile no matter what. And she just had a quirkiness about her that 0.98

00:07:10.400 that, uh, not a lot of people possess that kind of talent to be able to light up a room like she did.

00:07:19.780 On the night of November 12th, 2022, Ethan and Zanna went to a party at Ethan's fraternity,

00:07:26.020 Theta Chi. One of Zanna's roommates, Bethany Funk, was at Theta Chi that night as well. But by 1.45 a.m.

00:07:33.820 on the morning of November 13th, all five roommates, including the fifth,

00:07:38.660 a young woman named Dylan Mortensen, were home in the house on 1122 King Road, along with Zanna's

00:07:46.780 boyfriend, Ethan Chapin. Zanna received a DoorDash delivery order at approximately 4 a.m.

00:07:54.580 And shortly after 4 a.m., reports are that all of the roommates were either asleep or at least

00:08:01.540 in their respective rooms. The roommates were close, active on social media, Pinterest, Instagram,

00:08:07.840 TikTok. We see how close they were in the social media posts they made, like this one.

00:08:12.640 Guys, it smells like dirty dick in here. Murphy, you've been a bad boy. 1.00

00:08:21.760 Oh my god, it's 9-10. Guys, can anybody drop me to class? I'm fucking late for my video.

00:08:26.120 Am I supposed to be there 10 minutes ago? 0.97

00:08:29.340 Did anybody do their chores today? Fuck, I'm just gonna do it. 1.00

00:08:33.760 I'm so happy. 1.00

00:08:35.400 Can you see that right there?

00:08:36.600 No, it was good. 1.00

00:08:37.160 Oh, shit, you guys. It's 8. Gotta go. Jake's calling. 0.99

00:08:40.520 Oh, Jake's calling.

00:08:43.660 Oh my god, I look horrid.

00:08:46.520 Oh, Murphy, you look so cute.

00:08:47.960 Get out of here. You seriously gotta get out of here. You're fucking freaking the shit out.

00:08:52.840 Okay, guys, I know I talk about myself a lot, but like, what would you guys do in my situation? 0.99

00:08:58.280 Zanna, where are you going?

00:08:59.340 Yeah, I've got to go and pull the guy. 0.98

00:09:00.840 I'm fucking bailed. 0.97

00:09:01.480 Oh, my way. 0.99

00:09:03.380 Zanna, do like a white knight?

00:09:04.980 Like, let's just deal with my knight.

00:09:07.460 Yo, is it okay to have a party? Like, just three or four people, at most.

00:09:11.880 Hmm, so fun. So full of life. So funny. And so unaware of the fate that would soon befall them.

00:09:22.620 At precisely 8.57 p.m. on the last full day of her life, in the midst of a busy Saturday,

00:09:28.160 bustling with the flurry of convivial activities generated by a football game in a college town,

00:09:33.420 Kaylee Gonsalves paused before going out for a night at the Corner Club bar with her best friend,

00:09:39.560 Maddie. She posted a series of photos on her Instagram account, which she captioned,

00:09:45.780 one lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day.

00:09:49.160 Oh, the photos are a cheery collection of six college kids, the youngest 19, the oldest 21,

00:09:56.580 bursting with bright-eyed good looks and future promise. They were meant to be, it appears,

00:10:03.520 visual testimony to the fun the students were having, to the blessings a munificent life had

00:10:09.140 generously bestowed on them. We know the girl's house on King Road was one that was full of joy

00:10:15.560 in the way a college house often is. It was the frequent location of parties or informal gatherings.

00:10:22.960 Many said the door was always open, that the roommates gave the door code out to friends who

00:10:27.560 gave the code to friends, and they would find themselves in the role of host quite often.

00:10:33.360 On several occasions, the parties brought out the police. And it is actually, strangely enough,

00:10:39.680 through police body camera footage that we get to know the personalities of these young women. 0.99

00:10:45.560 You can see how respectful they were of law enforcement in these interactions,

00:10:49.860 poised, friendly, outgoing. There was Zana one night apologizing for a noise complaint made by a

00:10:56.740 neighbor. What's your name? Zana. Zana, do you live here? Yes. This is the second noise complaint

00:11:03.180 we've had here tonight, within two hours. I'm sorry about that. So this time it was the blonde gal 1.00

00:11:07.740 and the guy on the back porch playing music. Okay. So I sincerely apologize about that. I'm just going to bed.

00:11:16.380 Okay. So just so you understand, you could be getting a misdemeanor citation for this, which means you have to go in front of a judge

00:11:24.140 and explain why you couldn't keep the people in your house quiet. Okay. We've already talked to Maddie once

00:11:30.120 and told her the same thing. Okay. The only reason she's not getting a ticket is because she's not standing

00:11:34.320 here in front of me. But I'm telling you right now, if we have to come back, you're getting a ticket.

00:11:38.600 Okay. So you will have to go see a judge. I'm fine right now.

00:11:42.120 You're not going to take it right now. I'm just trying to go to bed right now.

00:11:45.880 Kaylee, too, takes the lead in engaging with the police when they showed up to a party,

00:11:50.220 talking her way out of a potential $300 fine or a noise violation.

00:11:54.520 How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Is this your place? Yeah. Perfect. You know,

00:12:00.240 I'm here. Um, I assume noise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing against having a party. Once neighbors

00:12:06.440 start calling in, they have an issue. Fair. Uh, you go to school? Uh, yeah. Okay. What year? Senior.

00:12:11.720 Senior. Okay. So I'll tell you the same thing I told them. You probably know the girl, right?

00:12:15.380 Actually, no. Oh, okay. So usually, at least for me, I'll give you a verbal warning. Okay. Uh,

00:12:19.840 once I have neighbors calling in, you're too loud. You're serving the peace. Yeah. Nothing against having

00:12:23.620 parties. Nothing against having people over who are over here to drink. But again,

00:12:26.720 once we start disturbing the neighbors, then we've got an issue. Yeah.

00:12:29.280 Most ticket is up to $300. Yeah. Somewhere around $300, $400.

00:12:32.900 It's a pretty expensive ticket. I don't want to give that to you. That being said,

00:12:35.180 this is your place. So I'm going to hold you. I'd much rather you spend that $300 on beer

00:12:39.200 or something fun. Yeah. Most ticket, right? Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah.

00:12:44.120 That being said, warnings. Don't do it again. Yep. I'd hate to come back in a few hours

00:12:49.580 and then have to issue that. So, yeah. Any questions for me? No. All right. Have a good day.

00:12:53.100 Take care.

00:12:55.880 Hmm. The girl's natural warmth and respect on these tapes, even in a tense situation,

00:13:01.060 makes their fate that November feel all the more incomprehensible.

00:13:06.540 In March of this year, Howard Bloom was a guest on the Megyn Kelly show. It was episode 515.

00:13:13.000 He talked about the afternoon of Sunday, November 13th, shortly after 1158 AM,

00:13:20.140 the time a 911 call came in from roommate Dylan Mortensen's cell phone.

00:13:27.460 First thing, they knew that something serious was wrong because all they got a report of was an

00:13:32.360 unconscious victim, an unconscious person, rather, at the house. And then they see a group of kids

00:13:38.560 mulling about the house, like goals on a beach, as it was described to me. And these kids are silent.

00:13:47.020 They've been putting it up with the university kids all their professional lives as cops. I don't think

00:13:52.560 they've ever seen silent kids before. They knew that this was something serious.

00:13:59.080 Bloom writes that the call was passed to Sergeant Shane Gunderson. Gunderson, who on that day was midway

00:14:05.840 through a 12-hour shift that had started at 6 AM, was running the operations division at the

00:14:11.040 sparklingly modernistic, it had opened barely 11 months earlier, Southview Avenue Police Headquarters.

00:14:18.020 Prior to that moment, he would tell people his tour had been long and slow, a languid weekend morning

00:14:23.920 punctuated by the chimes of the town's many church bells tolling solemnly in the wind.

00:14:28.500 In fact, he had spent a good deal of that desk-bound Sunday morning mulling something other than police

00:14:35.340 business. Gunderson had been avidly mapping out in his mind a strategy for the eight-hour, or easily

00:14:42.120 more, trek to the summit of Mount Bora he and a friend from the University of Idaho Psych Department

00:14:48.300 had been planning for the spring. It's Idaho's highest point, and the trail up the southwest ridge

00:14:55.040 to the 12,662-foot summit is a steep, hard climb. And, he would admit, after a beer or two,

00:15:03.380 it was just the sort of challenge he'd been missing lately. Now that he had his sergeant stripes,

00:15:07.700 police work was more about distributing memos and filing papers than getting out into the field.

00:15:13.260 That bothered him. Nearly 10 years on the force, he still wanted to be the gung-ho officer who had

00:15:19.680 joined up straight out of Lewis Clark State College in nearby Lewiston and worked his way up from

00:15:24.780 patrolman. In his early days, he had distinguished himself as a hands-on cop, someone out on the

00:15:30.780 streets doing what the Moscow PD calls community policing. Back then, he'd scored a lot of points

00:15:37.860 both in and out of the department, as well as winning the Officer of the Year honor in 2017,

00:15:43.560 when he single-handedly planned and organized a hot dog barbecue, bringing together the cops and

00:15:49.660 local school kids. He was from the area, growing up in small-town potlatch, and still smarting from

00:15:57.560 his own childhood run-ins. He knew only too well how hard-ass cops could sour things, make things

00:16:03.960 confrontational. It was his job, he'd say with determination, looking out for and working with

00:16:10.280 the citizens of Moscow. When the 911 call came in, Gunderson had a corporal and two other officers

00:16:16.160 on duty to assist with patrol. He could have left the response to them. He certainly, he'd tell people

00:16:22.240 with a hint of embarrassment, had no intimation of something out of the ordinary. That morning,

00:16:28.620 he was simply eager to break the monotony. And as always, he felt strongly, it was important for him

00:16:33.960 to get out on the street where people could see him. He swiftly decided he'd go to the scene too,

00:16:40.120 with his officers. It was a quick trip. The roads leading into the university neighborhood that

00:16:45.880 Sunday were as empty as the classrooms. And as soon as Gunderson's black-and-white cruiser pulled

00:16:51.760 up behind the neat row of cars parked in the driveway of the austere, cantilevered house on King Road,

00:16:58.360 he immediately knew something was very wrong. It was the noise. There wasn't any. Just an eerie,

00:17:07.640 unnatural silence. A cluster of young people were wandering about, not merely subdued. They seemed

00:17:16.380 stunned, as if drained by a deep and intense shock. When the three mystified officers approached the

00:17:23.880 front door, someone in the crowd, it would later be shared, muttered a single plaintiff word,

00:17:29.620 dead. Still, Gunderson would confess to others he was unprepared for the strong smell of blood

00:17:36.640 that rose up in his nostrils the moment he walked inside. The coroner, who had once been an emergency

00:17:43.200 room nurse in an earlier stage of her life, would describe the scene in press interviews

00:17:47.880 as chaos, lots of blood. Few others would even attempt to put into words what they saw.

00:17:54.140 There are moments, cops will tell you, that are too profound, too unnerving to be experienced in

00:18:01.740 the present. All you can do is move forward. There will be time later to try to make sense of it all.

00:18:08.360 Procedure takes precedence. It allows a protective membrane to be stretched between the real

00:18:13.540 and the two real. All other thoughts, all other feelings become extraneous. The trio of officers

00:18:21.660 meanwhile proceeded with haste to the second floor. They opened the bedroom door to find two dead bodies,

00:18:29.360 a male and a female. The pair was gruesomely drenched in blood, yet both had their good-looking faces

00:18:36.440 oddly preserved, like masks. Even at that probing moment, it was difficult, one of the young officers

00:18:44.400 would later wail, to look at the 20-year-old pair. They were Ethan and Zanna. On the third floor,

00:18:53.260 things got, if possible, worse. In one bedroom, lying in a single bed, were two inert women. It was Maddie 1.00

00:19:01.520 and Kaylee. They might have been sisters, so similar were the 21-year-old's pretty Barbie doll-like

00:19:08.020 sculpted features, their long cascades of thick, streaked blonde hair falling down to their narrow

00:19:13.380 shoulders. Yet in death, there was one gruesome difference. Kaylee, it would be reported, had been

00:19:20.660 hacked with a particular ferocity. It was as if her wild assailant, or was it assailants, had been intent

00:19:28.820 on gouging out chunks of her flesh. Large punctures was how the lacerations had been described. Maddie's

00:19:37.780 wounds, while no less fatal, appeared less feral, more measured, at least in comparison. Across the

00:19:45.700 narrow hallway was one final door. The officers pulled it open, and at last, they discovered a sign

00:19:51.960 of life. A fluffy, caramel-colored dog. It was Murphy, Kaylee's frisky labradoodle. He was unharmed,

00:20:00.920 not marred by even a speck of blood. A small consolation, and barely one at that for all they

00:20:07.260 had seen and were only beginning to process. Later that day, around 4 p.m., a police officer named

00:20:14.400 Brett Payne arrived at the scene, he would go on to interview the two surviving roommates, Dylan and

00:20:22.580 Bethany, who in the affidavit he would file were only identified as DM and BF. Here is, directly from

00:20:31.580 the affidavit, what he learned from his interviews with both Dylan and Bethany, although it appeared

00:20:37.280 Bethany had slept through the commotion on floors above her first-floor bedroom. DM and BF, quoting

00:20:44.940 here from the affidavit, both made statements during interviews that indicated the occupants

00:20:49.660 of the King Road residence were at home by 2 a.m. and asleep, or at least in their rooms, by

00:20:54.700 approximately 4 a.m., he wrote. This is with the exception of Zanna Kurnodal, who received a DoorDash

00:21:00.620 order at the residence at approximately 4 a.m. Law enforcement identified the DoorDash delivery

00:21:05.600 driver who reported this information. DM stated she originally went to sleep in her bedroom 0.63

00:21:11.280 on the southeast side of the second floor. DM stated she was awoken at approximately 4 a.m.

00:21:18.080 by what she stated sounded like Gonsalves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms,

00:21:23.820 which were located on the third floor. A short time later, DM said she heard who she thought

00:21:30.900 was Gonsalves say something to the effect of, there's someone here. A review of records obtained

00:21:38.660 from a forensic download of Kurnodal's phone showed this could also have been Kurnodal,

00:21:44.580 as her cellular phone indicated she was likely awake and using the TikTok app at approximately 4.12 a.m.

00:21:53.580 DM stated she looked out of her bedroom but did not see anything when she heard the comment

00:21:58.360 about someone being in the house. DM stated she opened her door a second time when she heard

00:22:03.980 what she thought was crying coming from Kurnodal's room. DM then said she heard a male voice say

00:22:10.340 something to the effect of, it's okay, I'm going to help you. At approximately 4.17 a.m.,

00:22:18.680 a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately to the northwest

00:22:24.040 of 1122 King picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud

00:22:32.760 thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4.17 a.m. The security camera

00:22:40.320 is less than 50 feet from the west wall of Zanna Kurnodal's bedroom. DM stated she opened her door for

00:22:48.260 the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that

00:22:55.180 covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. DM described the figure as 5'10 or taller,

00:23:02.020 male, not very muscular, but athletically built, with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past DM as she

00:23:10.160 stood in a, quote, frozen shock phase. The male walked toward the back sliding glass door. DM locked herself

00:23:17.940 in her room after seeing the male. DM did not state that she recognized the male. This leads

00:23:24.120 investigators to believe that the murderer left the scene. We'll get back to the affidavit in a bit.

00:23:35.240 Dylan then locked her bedroom door until the morning in a decision that would just befuddle so many

00:23:41.120 people. Why? Why? Why didn't she do more? We don't know the answers, but surely we will by the time

00:23:49.360 this case is tried. Sometime after 11 a.m., the roommates attempted to wake their friends. They were

00:23:57.120 unable to, and they would call others to the house for help. There, at least one of those friends finally

00:24:03.340 dialed 911. Howard Bloom, again with us, back in March. One can, you know, raise all sorts of

00:24:11.560 questions, as I do. At the same time, I think one has to cut this poor girl a little slack. In many ways,

00:24:19.340 she's a victim, too. She will live with this for her entire life. She saw something incredible,

00:24:29.520 astonishing, and she just perhaps couldn't deal with it.

00:24:37.140 Back to Sergeant Gunderson. He quickly called his boss, Captain Roger Lanier, the head of the 24

00:24:43.720 Officer Operations Division. He found him, not unexpectedly for a Sunday, sitting down to lunch

00:24:49.460 with his family. Lanier was a veteran cop. He had spent more than 20 years on the force in nearby

00:24:55.060 Lewiston before having been lured six years earlier to Moscow with a captain's rank. After all his years

00:25:01.600 on the job, he'd become a steady, avuncular presence, a bald-headed, genial cop who never got

00:25:07.280 flustered because, as he would tell people, he had seen it all in his day. But Gunderson's report

00:25:13.460 left him unnerved. It took me a second, he recalled, a sharp edge even weeks later to the memory.

00:25:19.880 I really had to think about what I'd just heard. Four murders in Moscow, Idaho, was so out of

00:25:27.760 character. At the time, they were fairly certain it was college students and it was near the campus,

00:25:33.620 and that area is kind of a campus community. So once I got over the initial shock, I knew that I was

00:25:40.100 coming to the station. So I drove in, and everybody just kind of fell into a roll. That was an all-hands-on-deck

00:25:46.680 moment Sunday afternoon. It became fairly apparent when I got to the scene that we were going to need

00:25:54.060 resources outside of just what the Moscow Police Department could provide.

00:26:00.000 But quickly, Lanier's professionalism took control. He had a thousand questions, and yet he knew the only

00:26:06.180 hope of finding answers would be to follow the previously established protocols. Dutifully, he gave

00:26:12.240 the orders to set up the perimeters of the crime scene to bring in the forensic team and to summon

00:26:17.600 the coroner. It was standard in a major case, and if four homicides was not a major case, what was?

00:26:25.680 To alert the Idaho State Police, and he did that too. Moscow was the responsibility of the state's 0.96

00:26:32.960 District 2 Detective Office in Lewiston, the county seat and where he'd been on the job for two decades,

00:26:39.000 and he knew many of the state detectives. There was a companionship. Still, it was a difficult

00:26:44.640 conversation. But his next call was harder. The university had to be informed. It was not just

00:26:51.780 that four students had been brutally murdered in an off-campus home, but there was no way of knowing

00:26:56.700 whether the killer or killers planned to strike again. The students needed to be warned. At 2.07 p.m.,

00:27:04.860 a little over two hours after the three cops had entered the blood-soaked house, the University

00:27:10.080 Office of Public Safety and Security sent a vandal alert email to the students and faculty,

00:27:16.800 quote, Moscow PD investigating a homicide on King Road near campus. Suspect is not known at this time.

00:27:23.000 Stay away from the area and shelter in place, end quote. A shelter in place order requires people 0.96

00:27:28.220 to take refuge in a room with no or few windows. At this point, busy hours had already quickly flown

00:27:34.980 by. But despite his marathon of activities, Lanier still had not succeeded in completing one task that

00:27:41.080 was at the top of his mental list. He had not been able to speak with his boss, James Fry, the chief of

00:27:47.320 police. By the time Lanier had finally reached him, it was hours after the discovery of the bodies.

00:27:53.220 And by the time Fry finally entered the home on King Road, it was dark outside, according to several

00:27:59.220 accounts, close to 6 p.m. For some abstruse reason, he had thought it was important to go home first and

00:28:06.140 change into his chief's uniform. Perhaps he hadn't fully grasped the magnitude of the disaster.

00:28:13.740 Or maybe, after nearly 28 years as a Moscow cop, he had felt his uniform was integral to his ability

00:28:21.260 to command. But what he saw that evening left him, he would confide to a friend later,

00:28:26.740 physically and emotionally drained. He was a father of two daughters who had attended the

00:28:31.820 University of Idaho. And he had also graduated from the university nearly three decades earlier.

00:28:38.320 It was impossible, he said, not to feel a visceral tie to the victims and to their parents. The cruelty of

00:28:45.080 the crime was deep and affecting, and yet he knew there was police work to be done. His mind was

00:28:51.920 racing, but, quixotically perhaps, within moments of buried memory, pushed itself forward. What if,

00:29:00.140 Fry asked himself with a sudden alarm, a serial killer had attacked the four students?

00:29:05.900 Pausing here to bring you some of Chief Fry's initial comments to the Moscow, Idaho community

00:29:13.260 from his very first press conference several days after the murders.

00:29:18.800 My name is Chief James Fry with the Moscow Police Department. I'm going to be reading from my notes

00:29:23.380 today because I want the information you received to be extremely accurate. This was a horrible crime

00:29:28.920 that took the lives of Ethan Chapin, Zanna Kurnodl, Madison Mogan, and Kaylee Goncalves.

00:29:39.640 This horrible crime has affected all of us, the families, the University of Idaho, our community,

00:29:48.260 our country, and our officers. Based on details of the scene, we believe this was an isolated,

00:29:55.880 targeted attack on our victims. We do not have a suspect at this time, and that individual is still

00:30:03.120 out there. We cannot say that there's no threat to the community, and as we have stated, please stay

00:30:09.320 vigilant, report any suspicious activity, and be aware of your surroundings at all times.

00:30:16.720 Here's what was challenging for the police from Bloom's reporting.

00:30:19.840 Fact. The four students were killed in their sleep, or at least while in their rooms,

00:30:25.380 sometime between 3 and 5 a.m. In the weeks ahead, they would develop a more precise timeline.

00:30:31.120 The murders the authorities deduced occurred between 4 and 4.25 a.m. Think about that. At 4.12 a.m.,

00:30:39.960 they had Zanna on TikTok, and the murders took place between 4 and 4.25 a.m.

00:30:46.200 Fact. There was no sign of forced entry or of robbery. Fact. A single weapon had been used.

00:30:53.940 A long-bladed knife. Critically, a tan leather knife sheath, stamped with a U.S. Marine Corps insignia,

00:31:02.140 was found lying next to Maddie Mogan's bed. Fact. There was no trail of blood outside the house.

00:31:10.020 Fact. The house was a repository for a large collection of forensic evidence.

00:31:14.880 Blood. Saliva. Hair. Prints. DNA. But whether any of those belonged to the killer.

00:31:22.420 After the autopsies, the general consensus held that it was a single assailant.

00:31:27.200 Still was undetermined. These were all, the investigators agreed, important pieces in the puzzle.

00:31:33.840 Yet they were not enough. For more than three weeks, the early morning conferences ended in a grim litany

00:31:39.880 of what remained unknown. They couldn't figure out how the killer had gotten away, seemingly without

00:31:46.500 leaving a clue. And they had no idea why he had chosen these victims. And now, as the investigation

00:31:54.920 in Moscow plotted on, and frustratingly on, an exasperated Chief Frye appealed to locals to become,

00:32:01.660 in effect, consulting detectives. We appreciate everybody's help that has been sending in those

00:32:09.180 tips. And investigators are vetting those, and they're following up on those. And the response

00:32:15.020 has been very great. We appreciate all the help from across the nation and our community.

00:32:20.040 He wanted help to put his men on the right scent. Detectives are looking for context to the events and

00:32:26.620 people involved in these murders, a Moscow PD press release announced, to assist with the ongoing

00:32:32.760 investigation. Any odd or out-of-the-ordinary events that took place should be reported. And nearly

00:32:39.580 begging, the release urged, your information, whether you believe it is significant or not,

00:32:44.220 might be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders. The tips poured

00:32:50.140 in. A new generation of consulting detectives, armed with cell phones and laptops, with access

00:32:56.260 to a vast repository of information from selfies to Facebook pages, and further stoked by the

00:33:01.540 barrage of the raw theories and hearsay, disseminated on Reddit and 4chan, embraced the opportunity.

00:33:09.280 It was a real-life mystery that had the compelling allure of a particularly thorny CSI episode.

00:33:15.740 And not least, the police were pleading for help.

00:33:18.880 More than 9,025 email tips were received, in addition to the 4,575 phone calls and 6,050 digital

00:33:29.640 media submissions. An army of law enforcement analysts was assigned to the long, daunting task

00:33:35.640 to see if in all the oysters there was a single pearl. Much of it led down rabbit holes of fatuous

00:33:43.340 speculation. Some of it was not just wrongheaded, but cruel. Innocent ex-boyfriends, a hoodie-wearing

00:33:50.880 bystander lurking at a food truck where Maddie and Kaylee had ordered early morning bowls of

00:33:55.560 carbonara to soak up the alcohol ingested during the last carefree pub crawl of their lives.

00:34:02.260 A bro neighbor who insisted on sharing rambling anecdotes with every reporter who knocked on his

00:34:07.140 door. And frat brothers who were rumored to be stoked up on steroids and driven by long,

00:34:12.960 gestating grievances. All were callously and persistently slandered with a malicious authority.

00:34:20.320 It got so madcap that a history prof at the university decided she had to sue to put an

00:34:25.980 end to one internet sleuth's bizarre speculation that a failed romance with one of the women

00:34:31.500 had driven the teacher to kill. And then the analysts hit a gold seam.

00:34:37.320 The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel by Doug Brunt. It's officially a New York Times bestseller as well

00:34:46.080 as an Apple Book of the Year, an Audible Book of the Year. It's even been optioned for a movie.

00:34:51.480 Rave reviews from The Times, The Journal, Publishers Weekly, and more calling Diesel a wildly enjoyable

00:34:57.560 ride. It is a page turning thriller about the greatest caper of the 20th century, all involving

00:35:04.020 a man whose name you likely see at the gas station every day, but probably had no idea, was at the

00:35:10.420 center of one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Don't miss out on the book everyone's talking

00:35:16.040 about. It will make the perfect gift, The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.

00:35:21.280 The overnight assistant manager, her name at her request remains secret, for a gas station on Troy

00:35:34.320 Road, not far from the house on King Road, had decided she might as well see what she could do.

00:35:39.980 She had not been working the night of the murders, but nevertheless, she spent the downtime on her

00:35:44.760 graveyard shift, reviewing the videos recorded by the station's surveillance cameras on November 13th.

00:35:53.100 I had a weird feeling, she later said. For two nights, she intermittently kept at it, but found

00:36:00.000 nothing. Then on the third night, she spotted a white car speeding down Highway 8 before turning

00:36:06.780 pell-mell down a side street. She took a screenshot of the car and emailed it to the tip line address.

00:36:13.240 Two days later, Moscow police arrived at the gas station to confiscate hours of surveillance footage,

00:36:20.000 and after just a quick view, they began to feel the hunt was on. Encouraged, they reached out on a

00:36:26.480 hunch to Kane Franzich. Recently retired and now investing in real estate, was a freewheeling guy who

00:36:32.480 shares on his website that he listens to classic vinyl while drinking single malt scotch. He also owned

00:36:39.520 a six-unit rental complex on Linda Lane, about three-tenths of a mile from where the bodies had

00:36:45.180 been found with a surveillance camera fixed to the roof. I downloaded it and gave them access to

00:36:51.540 everything from 2 a.m. through noon on Sunday the 13th, he said. Once those tapes were reviewed,

00:36:57.460 the same telltale white car was spotted. And again, it appeared to be making a breakneck getaway

00:37:04.840 through the dark a.m. streets. With this confirming sighting, a different pace, a different mood took

00:37:11.920 over the investigation. The team felt they could now march forward with a purpose. The FBI laboratory

00:37:17.640 enhancement had succeeded in deciphering the blurred image of the car. They believed it was a white 2011

00:37:25.120 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra. Now, there were 22,000 Hyundais in the region that matched the search criteria,

00:37:34.580 and one of them, the police were starting to suspect, had been driven by a killer.

00:37:40.060 From the affidavit released in January, quote, a review of footage from multiple videos obtained from

00:37:47.040 the King Road neighborhood showed multiple sightings of suspect vehicle one, starting at 3.29 a.m.,

00:37:53.540 ending at 4.20 a.m. These sightings show suspect vehicle one makes an initial three passes by the

00:38:01.380 1122 King Road residence and then leaves V.O. Willen to drive. Based off my experience as a patrol

00:38:08.400 officer, this is a residential neighborhood with a very limited number of vehicles that travel in the

00:38:13.100 area during the early morning hours. Upon review of the video, there are only a few cars that enter and

00:38:18.920 exit this area during this time frame. Suspect vehicle one can be seen entering the area a

00:38:24.320 fourth time at approximately 4.04 a.m. It can be seen driving eastbound on King Road, stopping and

00:38:33.240 turning around in front of 500 Queen Road, number 52, and then driving back westbound on King Road.

00:38:39.980 When suspect vehicle one is in front of the King Road residence, it appeared to unsuccessfully

00:38:45.740 attempt to park or turn around in the road. The vehicle then continued to the intersection of

00:38:51.380 Queen Road and King Road, where it can be seen completing a three-point turn and then driving

00:38:56.120 eastbound again down Queen Road. Suspect vehicle one is seen, next, departing the area of the King Road

00:39:05.080 residence at approximately 4.20 a.m. at a high rate of speed. Back now to Bloom's reporting.

00:39:12.800 Finding the one Elantra that would lead to an arrest loomed as a needle-in-a-haystack sort of

00:39:19.680 challenge. The search, even with a small army of burrowers, was a nearly impossible task.

00:39:26.420 Then, as the holiday season approached, a hint of a Christmas miracle. Chief Fry, for once upbeat,

00:39:35.180 met late in the morning of December 20th with Rand Walker, the department psychologist, and Rod

00:39:40.620 Olps, one of the police chaplains in the courthouse law library. It was one of the few places they could

00:39:46.060 huddle where the chief felt no one would be listening. I'm going to need you two to get ready,

00:39:50.500 he said, with a deliberate coyness. I'm going to need you before too long. The two men eagerly asked

00:39:57.660 whether there had been a break in the case. Fry did his best to rein in a pregnant smile. 1.00

00:40:01.940 All I'm saying, he reiterated, is I need you both to stand by. I might be calling you very soon.

00:40:10.180 But at 4.30 that afternoon, the Moscow police public communications team issued a flash update,

00:40:15.800 quote, investigators are aware of a Hyundai Elantra located in Eugene, Oregon, and have spoken with

00:40:22.420 the owner. The vehicle is not believed to have any relation to any property in Moscow, Idaho,

00:40:28.820 or the ongoing murder investigations. And just like that, the psychologist and the chaplain knew

00:40:35.420 that the chief, despite the hopeful conversation earlier that day, would not be calling them anytime

00:40:41.000 soon. Meanwhile, as the hunt for the Elantra proceeded with tedious concentration, the no less

00:40:48.020 discouraging challenge of finding a clue in the forensic evidence of vast muddle of prints, blood,

00:40:54.700 and DNA that had been collected in the house, was brought vividly home. Body cam footage was

00:41:01.840 released of a call at the King Road residence two months before the murders by a trio of Moscow cops

00:41:07.900 in response to yet another noise complaint from an annoyed neighbor. The body camera footage,

00:41:14.940 Bloom would write, was at first seen as deeply poignant. The house seemed to be nearly shaking with

00:41:21.480 festive noise. Tyler Childress's feathered Indians boomed from the speakers. Kids were calling

00:41:28.180 happily to one another, a giddy mix of bouncy, energetic voices. It was a Thursday night and

00:41:34.660 there was a party going on. This is what it's like to be young. To more acerbic minds, the footage was a

00:41:41.740 small, self-contained story about the tensions of policing in a college town. The kids, being kids,

00:41:48.580 were seen given the police a sly run around, and the cops, being cops, retaliated with a display of

00:41:55.060 petty vengeance. A confiscated stash of beers and Trulies was poured onto the driveway. Yet this being

00:42:03.200 Moscow and this house being destined for infamy, this burst of class warfare would have an unexpected 0.71

00:42:09.540 coda. One of the smirking cops spilling the booze would in time be part of the team that first 0.98

00:42:16.020 discovered the bodies. Another would help load the cardboard cartons holding the murdered students'

00:42:21.800 belongings into a U-Haul for the grim trip to the police parking lot. To the informed and dispassionate

00:42:28.720 view of the FBI's scientific experts, however, the body cam footage was seen solely in operational terms,

00:42:35.500 and it was dispiriting. It made clear that just about anyone and everyone had access to 1122 King Road.

00:42:42.720 The door was always open, and a stream of people were constantly coming and going.

00:42:50.360 The analysts moaned that there would be so much forensic evidence it might be easier to determine

00:42:54.600 who in Moscow had never been inside the house, rather than their having any realistic hope of

00:43:00.320 ever finding a suspect. And yet, perhaps it wasn't a 2011 to 2013 Elantra after all.

00:43:07.700 Investigators were given access to video footage on the Washington State University, or WSU,

00:43:14.520 campus located nearby in Pullman, Washington. A review of that video indicated that at approximately

00:43:21.340 2.44 a.m. on November 13, 2022, a white sedan, which was consistent with a description of the

00:43:29.360 white Elantra, known as Suspect Vehicle 1, was observed on WSU surveillance cameras traveling north

00:43:36.900 on Southeast Nevada Street at Northeast Stadium Way. At approximately 2.53 a.m., a white sedan,

00:43:44.700 which is consistent with a description of the white Elantra, known as Suspect Vehicle 1,

00:43:48.640 was observed traveling southeast on Nevada Street in Pullman, Washington, toward SR-270.

00:43:55.480 This is Howard Bloom here, quoting from the affidavit.

00:43:58.720 SR-270 connects Pullman, Washington, to Moscow, Idaho.

00:44:02.140 This camera footage from Pullman, Washington, was provided to the same FBI forensic examiner.

00:44:08.280 The forensic examiner identified the vehicle observed in Pullman, Washington as being a

00:44:14.720 2014 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra. At approximately 5.25 a.m., a white sedan, which was consistent with

00:44:24.860 the description of Suspect Vehicle 1, was observed on five cameras in Pullman, Washington,

00:44:29.540 and on WSU campus cameras. What was it doing there? Well, shortly after midnight on November 29th,

00:44:36.540 Washington State Police Officer Daniel Tiango reported that he had identified a 2015 white

00:44:43.200 Elantra on campus with a license plate LFZ-8649. It wasn't from Washington, though, or Idaho.

00:44:52.900 It was registered to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to the affidavit, just minutes later,

00:44:59.860 a different officer, Curtis Whitman, located that car in the parking lot of an apartment complex

00:45:05.600 that houses WSU students. The vehicle belonged to a graduate student and a teacher's assistant

00:45:12.540 named Brian Christopher Kohlberger. His major was criminology. Kohlberger would be driving that car

00:45:19.820 shortly after the identification, far away from Washington and Idaho and the scene of that

00:45:25.820 gruesome quadruple murder. It was headed for a cross-country drive. He had a passenger in the car

00:45:31.820 too, his father. Little did they or the small-town community of Moscow, Idaho, or the country that had

00:45:38.260 become obsessed with and terrified by this story, have any idea that the police and the FBI were tracking

00:45:46.360 their every move as they made their way back home to Pennsylvania, but not before a few bizarre

00:45:52.240 chance encounters with authorities along the way. We'll be back tomorrow with that.

00:46:02.020 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

00:46:16.360 Thank you.

00:46:20.360 Alright.

00:46:21.260 Thank you.

00:46:21.840 Thank you.

00:46:28.560 Thank you.

00:46:38.000 Thank you.

00:46:39.560 Thank you.

00:46:40.500 Thank you.

00:46:42.760 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 18, 2023

The Crime Scene： Idaho College Murders and Bryan Kohberger, Megyn Kelly Show Special - Part One ｜ Ep. 688

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