Unanswered Questions： Idaho College Murders and Bryan Kohberger, Megyn Kelly Show Special - Part Five ｜ Ep. 692
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Summary
After a year-long investigation, Brian Kohlberger was finally charged with the murder of four college students in their dorm room in Moscow, Idaho. The case has captivated the country for the better part of a year, and there are still plenty of unanswered questions about this unfathomable crime. As we conclude our series, we bring you the details of the murder, the arrest, and the potential paths for the prosecution and defense when the trial begins next year.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I'm Megyn Kelly. All week, we've been bringing you a special
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edition of the show, where we take you inside the murder case that has captivated the country
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for the better part of a year. The story of the quadruple murder in Moscow, Idaho, and of suspect
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Brian Kohlberger. Today, we conclude our series. We brought you the details of the murder, the arrest,
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the potential paths for the prosecution and defense when the trial begins next year,
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and we examined the dark side of Kohlberger and his past. And now, some of the unanswered questions
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that are still swirling about this unfathomable crime. As this concludes, I would love to hear
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your thoughts on all of it. What stands out to you about this case? Have you made up your mind
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about Kohlberger's guilt? And if not, why not? What lingering questions do you still have?
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This case will be front and center in 2024. We'll be covering the trial as it happens.
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Remember, cameras will be in the courtroom for this one, which will be absolutely fascinating.
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Email me your thoughts on this program, on the Kohlberger case at megan, M-E-G-Y-N,
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at megankelly.com. All right? Megan at megankelly.com. And if you go to megankelly.com and sign up there
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for our weekly email, we'll provide you with behind-the-scenes details on the reporting of this
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case. As with our previous episodes, today's features the writing and the reporting of legendary
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crime journalist and author Howard Bloom. Bloom has been reporting on this case for nearly a year.
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He's written compellingly about it for Air Mail News. His forthcoming book on the case will be
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published in the spring by HarperCollins. Keep that on your radar. But for now, big questions include
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the following. One, assuming it was Kohlberger, as the police allege, why? Why did he do it? What
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could his motive have been? Was he targeting a specific victim and then the crime spun out of
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control? Two, if it was Kohlberger, is it possible he had help? Could there be an accomplice in the
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picture here? And three, what about the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany
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Funk? What did they see? Why didn't they call the police right away? And what are they up to now?
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As we tackle those questions, one name in particular stands out as a person who has been at the forefront
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of asking questions and pushing for answers. It's not a podcaster or a crime reporter, although there
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have been plenty of those too. It's a dad. A father with a deep and tragic connection to this story.
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The four victims in the case, Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Gonsalves, Zanna Kurnodal, and Maddie Mogan.
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All their parents have spoken out on behalf of their children, but one father in particular
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seems to have led the push for answers. And that is Steve Gonsalves, Kaylee's dad. Within weeks,
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You can't imagine sending your girl to college and then they come back in a, you know, in an
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urn. It was fast. And nobody suffered and nobody felt like that kind of pain.
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Every day that goes by and you don't hear anything, what does that do?
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Just tells me statistically I'm going to have to do more work myself. I'm not going to sit here
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and just be a crybaby dad. It's going to be a cold case if we don't do something within the next
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week or two. He stayed on it, talking after Kohlberger's arrest and arraignment.
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I'm just like everyone else. I want to know exactly what's going on. I want to see all the
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evidence. All the information will come out, but it doesn't have to come out in multiple times in
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multiple ways. And continuing to push for the facts to get out to the public and to his family.
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He and his wife, Christy, spoke to a local news outlet.
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It's been almost a year. I mean, it's hard to believe, right? How are you guys doing? I think
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people would love to know that. I think we're doing the best we can. And I think that that is
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to be thankful to all the people that are wondering about us. They really get us through,
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you know, co-workers, friends. They're like family now. And, um, I think it'd be much harder
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without all the love and support. Yeah. We've got a page where we're able to talk to people all
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across the world that this has made an impact and change in their life. So that helps.
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Behind the scenes, Steve has been active too, doing his own detective work before and after
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co-workers arrest. He says he needed to know if all the facts were uncovered. He needed to keep
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pushing. As Howard Bloom writes, among those Steve tracked down early in the case was Hunter Johnson,
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Ethan Chapin's frat brother and best friend. Just before noon on November 13th, Hunter Johnson had been
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summoned by the two distraught survivors to the King Roadhouse, where he had discovered Ethan's
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body. Days later, he gave his eyewitness account to Kaylee's dad, Steve, as a soldier might.
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Straightforward, factual, and without either embellishment or emotion. It was only when he
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finished that the two men, both overwhelmed, at last convulsed into tears. Steve also made a point
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of knocking on the doors of the houses adjacent to the murder scene and interrogating the neighbors.
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He was going where he felt he had to go, but his mission had not produced the desired result.
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Over a month had passed since the murders, and there had been no arrests, only vague statements
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about a missing Hyundai Elantra that had been spotted near the King Roadhouse the night of the murders.
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The authorities had yet to name a suspect. It was infuriating. The prospect of his daughter's
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murder becoming one more cold case was torture. But as much as he needed to see a perp being let
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off in handcuffs, Steve Gonsalves was also chasing after something else. He needed to know why.
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Why these kids? Why this house? Why had this nightmare enveloped his family's life? For his own peace of mind,
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he required a motive. And without this knowledge, nothing in his life from November 13th onward
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would ever make sense. He did posit to Court TV in June that perhaps jealousy was a factor.
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They're just two girls that were always happy, always filming. So I think maybe he just seen that
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happiness and there's something in him that was jealous of the fact that two people could love each
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other. It'd be like the best friends. And I think that really rubbed him wrong and got him thinking
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about, well, why do they have this great life? And I don't. And I think that's whoever he picked,
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that'll be the backstory is just a jealousy of their lifestyle.
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Steve remains open to the possibility that others might also have been involved here,
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according to texts provided to Bloom. It seems to Steve quite possible that there were more
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perpetrators in the house on King Road on the night his daughter and her friends were killed.
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And if there were, they must still be at large. He is furious that Kohlberger's trial,
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which had been scheduled to start on October 2nd, has been postponed indefinitely. He fears,
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he's complained, according to Bloom, that the trial will not occur for many months or even years.
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And he's particularly incensed by the no-nonsense gag order that severely limits what the law
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enforcement authorities, the lawyers, and even the families of the victims can publicly say about
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the case. It is not just that he deems this a violation of his fundamental constitutional rights.
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Rather, the paucity of specific intelligence has created a vacuum that is being filled by rumors,
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half-truths, and crackpot lies. And once these malignant seeds are planted, they grow tall and
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wild on the internet. Steve needs answers, not rumors. And so despite the arrest of a suspect,
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he has not abandoned his quest. He has a clear mission, as he told News Nation in May.
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I feel like we have a mission, we have a job to do, we have things that have to happen.
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And when I see those things happening, that helps me understand that we're going in the right
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direction. And that's always better than just sitting and waiting for who knows what's going
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to happen. And it's not simply vanity, the belief that one middle-aged guy with only a background in
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IT can get to the bottom of things in a special way. It's fear that propels him, the fear that if he
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waits passively for the cops finally to share what little they have managed to uncover,
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it might be too late. The remaining unidentified perpetrators will have gone to ground and justice
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will not be secured. Nor will he ever get the terrible satisfaction of knowing the whole story.
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He will never achieve the state of grace that comes, he wants to believe, with understanding a
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motive. He will never know the answer to the question at the beating heart of this case.
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Why? And so for the past year, he has plowed on. It has not been easygoing or always fruitful.
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For one cruel example, early on, an enticing tip came his way, according to the texts from a source
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he described as a, quote, jailhouse snitch. That's who gave him the tip. It was a tale that offered to
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tie up all the loose ends of the case. And spurred on by that promise, both Steve and the private
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detective he had hired fanned out with their inquiries into several states, energized by the
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intoxicating possibility that he was on the verge of accomplishing what the professionals had failed
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to do. But in the bitter end, it was nothing more than an elaborate con, a malicious scheme to squeeze
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some money out of a grieving family's misery. The experience was demoralizing.
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As for the rumors of a drug deal gone bad being the underlying motive, Steve had been told by the
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authorities that the toxicity reports on all four of the victims established that they had no drugs
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in their system. Besides, if they wanted to score some pot, there was no need to get involved with a
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street dealer. The kids, he pointed out, could go down a street and in eight miles, there was a store
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where they could easily make a buy, despite the fact that marijuana remained illegal in Idaho.
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Christy, his wife, went with them once to check it out. He texted the friend, reports Bloom.
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News Nation's Brian Enten asked prosecutor Bill Thompson in November 2022 if drugs were involved
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in the case, and the veteran DA made no bones about the answer.
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Could drugs be involved in all of this? I have not heard that there's any suspicion
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that drugs played a role in the killings. So not like a drug deal gone bad or something like that?
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I am not aware of anything like that, no. What else did Steve learn as he did his own
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investigation into his daughter's murder? Kohlberger had purchased a dark blue Dickies
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long-sleeved work uniform at the Walmart in Pullman, Washington, not long before the murders
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was one thing he learned. The authorities had a copy of the $49.99 receipt, and they also now had a
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theory to explain how Kohlberger had managed to escape from the crime scene without a scratch
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and without leaving an incriminating drop of blood in his getaway car or his apartment.
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Perhaps he had worn the work uniform during the murders and then had disrobed before he got behind
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the wheel of his Hyundai Elantra for his circuitous drive back to his apartment. Perhaps the
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authorities hypothesized he had stuffed the work suit into a plastic garbage bag and then shoved it
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into his trunk. Only authorities could find no sign of the Dickies outfit. The police had looked high
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and low, but they could not find it just as they could not locate the murder weapon. They had a receipt
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for a K-bar knife he had purchased, Brian, online months before the killings, but this too had seemingly
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vanished. And as long as these two crucial pieces of evidence remained unavailable, what the killer wore
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and what the killer used, Steve feared the building case against Kohlberger would remain more open than
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shut. Even more troubling, if true, was what Steve had learned from people who had spoken to members of
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the grand jury who had been presented with the prosecution's case. It's centered on the alleged
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behavior of the two roommates who had miraculously survived the night unscathed. We made a reference
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to it earlier. How, he wondered, could they have been so blissfully unaware, sleeping? Through the savage
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pre-dawn stabbing murders of four people in a narrow house with paper-thin walls. Steve had been told that
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the two survivors allegedly had not only been awake while the killings had taken place, but that they
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had heard everything. More astonishingly, his grand jury sources alleged that the two girls had been
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texting one another as the murderer methodically went from one room to the next. Of course, if that's true,
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police will have seen the records. All of those texts will have been recorded. The possibility that two
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people had a sense of the horror while it occurred and had not acted, calling neither friends nor 9-1-1
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left Steve floored. Again, this is according to Bloom. And no less confounding, they had, if his sources
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were as knowledgeable as he believed, then let hour after hour tick away before they finally decided to
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summon friends. It added an entirely new band of mystery to a crime that was already bound by so many
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unanswered questions. Wracked by frustration and despair, all Steve could do was send a disheartened
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text to one of his fellow internet detectives, quote, there is so much more to this story than is in the
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media. The time gap between when at least one roommate heard and possibly saw the intruder and when 9-1-1
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was called remains one of the strangest things about this case. Why neither Dylan nor Bethany, who was also home
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that night, called 9-1-1 until more than seven hours after the murders remains unclear. In the end, while we do not
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know precisely who made the 9-1-1 call, we know it was not ultimately one of those roommates who called the police
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at all. It was a friend calling from Dylan Mortensen's phone. Murders around 4 a.m. and no phone call until
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almost noon. Sure, it was a weekend. College kids, they sleep late and tend to sleep soundly. But we have to go
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back to the affidavit, where we learned that while roommate Bethany Funk was sleeping through the entire
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ordeal, at least according to what she told police, Dylan Mortensen was awake. A reminder, here's what we
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learned. And the initials DM are for Dylan Mortensen. DM stated, this is from the police affidavit, she originally
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went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor. DM stated she was awoken at approximately
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4 a.m. by what she stated sounded like Gonsalves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms, which were
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located on the third floor. A short time later, DM said she heard who she thought was Gonsalves say something to the
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effect of, there's someone here. A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Zanna
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Kronodal's phone show this could also have been Kronodal, as her cellular phone indicated she was
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likely awake and using TikTok at approximately 4.12 a.m. DM stated she looked out of her bedroom but did not
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see anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house. DM stated she opened her door
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for a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kronodal's room. DM then said
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she heard a male voice say something to the effect of, it's okay, I'm going to help you. At approximately
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4.17 a.m., a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately to the northwest
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of 1122 King Road, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a
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loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4.17 a.m. The security camera is
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less than 50 feet from the west wall of Kronodal's bedroom. DM stated she opened her door for the third
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time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the
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person's mouth and nose walking toward her. DM described the figure as 5'10 or taller, male, not
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very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past DM as she stood in a
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quote, frozen shock phase, end quote. The male walked toward the backsliding glass door. DM locked herself in
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her room after seeing the male. DM did not state that she recognized the male. This leads investigators
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to believe that the murderer left the scene. So, a frozen shock phase. That appears to be the phrase
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given by Dylan to police as outlined in that affidavit. But what else do we know? First, very early on,
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questions about Dylan's actions that night became a public conversation, even among those closest to
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the victims. Initially, the attorney representing the Gonsalves family, Shannon Gray, defended Dylan's
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action saying that Dylan must have been scared to death and was still a victim in this case when he
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called into Fox News in January. No, no 911 calls. I mean, that raises a great many issues. How are you
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kind of sorting that together? Well, you remember, she's a victim in this case. She is. Everybody kind
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of forgets that, you know, she is still a victim in this case. And the fact that she was able to give
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some additional identification, I think, is beneficial to the case. She was able to, you know,
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give kind of height and build and what they looked like a little bit, bushy eyebrows, things along those
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lines. And in regards to going back into her room and she was scared. She was scared to death, and rightly so.
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But according to the Daily Mail, Ethan Chapin's sister-in-law posted on Reddit that D, which we understand
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to mean Dylan Mortensen, quote, supposedly called all the girls in the house after crying and screaming
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stopped and no one answered. And she still didn't call the police. She goes on, quote, she needs to explain
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herself and her actions that night. We don't have anything more from the sister-in-law on that,
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but you can bet if she knows something along these lines, she may be a witness.
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Rave reviews from The Times, The Journal, Publishers Weekly, and more calling Diesel
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00:20:15.340
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00:20:20.340
but probably had no idea, was at the center of one of the greatest mysteries of all time.
00:20:26.600
Don't miss out on the book everyone's talking about. It will make the perfect gift,
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The reason Dylan and Bethany did not call 911 remains a mystery to this day,
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one of the biggest of the case. Perhaps it is what Dylan told police the next day,
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that she was just paralyzed with fear. For seven hours? Multiple reports suggest
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that we expect a trial. We will hear from both roommates in their own words, as both women
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would likely testify. How helpful their testimony will be for the prosecution or the defense
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remains to be seen. Kohlberger's defense team tried to subpoena roommate Bethany Funk in April
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to testify at Kohlberger's scheduled preliminary hearing. After fighting this subpoena,
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she eventually agreed to be interviewed at home in Nevada. The Kohlberger defense initially alleged
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that Bethany Funk had information that is, quote, exculpatory to the defendant,
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meaning potentially supportive of his innocence. We don't know why they might believe that or whether
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they really do. But what we do know is that if either roommate talks at trial, we will see it.
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Cameras will be there. The televised nature of this trial is something I discussed with former
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prosecutor Marsha Clark earlier this year. She brought her OJ Simpson trial experience into her
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answer. The downsides are huge. You know, the problem that you face, of course, is that it turns
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into a circus. Now, in fairness, if you have a judge who knows how to keep the guardrails on,
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it can be fine. But if he doesn't and he just lets the cameras, you know, be turned on 24-7,
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it's a nightmare. And you wind up having people come forward who just want the limelight and really
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have nothing to say. Or you have people that are afraid of the limelight and have something to say
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and don't want to come forward. You have lawyers who are, you know, stumping for camera time and
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FaceTime and, you know, and extending things interminably with no real argument to make because they want to
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be famous. You have prosecutors who probably do the same thing in some instances. And, you know,
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you have a judge who sits down for a six-part interview with the news anchor to talk about his life
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in his past. So I don't know where I pulled that one from. So I do. So, I mean, it causes these kinds of
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distortions and it does cause a circus. So, you know, I understand the problem. Fred Goldman said,
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and he changed my mind. But the world would never know what the evidence really was. The world would
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never know and bother to read the newspapers after the fact about all of the evidence that we were
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able to produce. A huge, overwhelming amount of evidence of guilt. He was right. You know, if you
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have the people moving around in the courtroom, people pay attention in a different way. So, you know,
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I've come down on the side of having a certain kind of thing where you allow the cameras in the
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courtroom when the jury is in the courtroom. So that what is disseminated to the public is what
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the jury sees. But when the jury is not there and you're having hearings about the evidence that
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should and should not come in, et cetera, that kind of thing, then you should not have cameras in the
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courtroom. You can have print reporters. That's fine. But having the cameras in the courtroom should
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be banned when the jury's not there. And with that kind of caveat, I think it's a good thing.
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In the one year since the murders, Bethany and Dylan have kept a low profile.
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They have not spoken publicly a single time. We know Bethany lives in Nevada while Dylan was
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recently seen in social media posts partying with friends at a University of Idaho sorority
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and at Halloween parties. Now we turn to unanswered question number two. How likely is it that Brian
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Kohlberger acted alone if he is indeed the perpetrator? Is it possible he had an accomplice or
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more than one accomplice? Much of this speculation stems from the fact that Kohlberger is someone
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with no known criminal history. And yet in what appears to be his first serious crime ever,
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he brutally stabs four individuals to death, killing them without detection and commits this
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heinous act in less than 15 minutes. Initially, one of the storylines that led some to believe there
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might be another person involved was when Kohlberger's defense team filed a motion early on in the case,
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requesting, among other things, information about a potential, quote, co-defendant in the case.
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This seemed to connect to an early question from Kohlberger himself to police in Pennsylvania when
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he reportedly asked them after he'd been arrested if they had arrested anyone else.
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We quickly learned, however, that there was no co-defendant and the prosecution was and appears to be
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working under the assumption that Kohlberger acted alone. And now we look to unanswered question
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number three. And it's really the big one. Why? What possibly could be the motive for this brutal
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and horrifying act? And along those same lines, does any evidence point to any of the four victims
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as being the specific target of the murderer here? On that question, here's what we know.
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First, we know, based on reporting from NewsNation, that Kaylee Gonsalves, that her injuries were
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considered, quote, significantly more brutal than those of her roommate and best friend, Maddie Mogan.
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We have just confirmed. NewsNation is learning that Kaylee Gonsalves' injuries were significantly
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more brutal than her best friend Maddie's injuries, which may end up being a very, very important piece
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of evidence when it comes to determining who the target was in this attack.
00:26:16.960
Does that indicate a particular focus by the killer on Kaylee? But then again, those murders occurred
00:26:23.320
in Maddie's room, not Kaylee's. In fact, Kaylee had recently moved out. She was only visiting her best
00:26:30.900
friend the night of the murders. So if Kaylee was the main target, how could the killer have known
00:26:37.480
that she was even in the house, never mind exactly where? In September, Kaylee's family told CBS
00:26:44.240
further details about what they have been told by authorities. Kaylee's mom said it appeared Maddie
00:26:51.580
was killed first, and that perhaps Kaylee was awakened by that attack and tried to escape.
00:26:57.640
The bed was up against the wall. The headboard was touching the wall, and the left side of the bed
00:27:04.780
was touching the wall. And we believed that Maddie was on the outside and Kaylee was on the inside.
00:27:11.100
According to Coroner Mabbitt, the killer's first victim was Maddie, says Steve.
00:27:16.600
And then from Maddie, he moved on to your daughter. You believe she had awakened at that point?
00:27:24.380
Yeah, there's evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation.
00:27:35.260
There are reports of defensive wounds found on Kaylee's body, on Zana Kurnodal's too, reportedly.
00:27:42.200
No such reports about Ethan or Maddie. But what does any of that mean for motive or targeting?
00:27:49.040
Kaylee's parents told CBS News they believe an Instagram account belonging to Brian Kohlberger
00:27:59.680
They believe they had found a possible connection through Instagram and immediately took these
00:28:07.920
From our investigation of the account, it appeared to be the real Brian Kohlberger account.
00:28:12.480
Among the people this account was following were Maddie Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves, in addition
00:28:25.200
However, that has not been corroborated and others have disputed it. In court, they'll have
00:28:30.120
to prove it. But whether there was a connection or not still does not explain motive. If it was
00:28:37.480
Kohlberger, why did he do it? As we told you in episode three, Kohlberger was a criminology
00:28:44.220
student. His past several years had been spent studying crimes in detail. While at DeSales getting
00:28:50.900
his master's degree, he posted a questionnaire to Reddit, which we went over. In retrospect,
00:28:57.640
Hello, my name is Brian, and I'm inviting you to participate in a research project that seeks
00:29:02.800
to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing
00:29:07.960
a crime. In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent
00:29:14.260
criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience.
00:29:20.260
To the average citizen, these questions may sound bizarre, but experts say it is not unusual
00:29:25.780
for criminologists to want to better understand the criminals they study.
00:29:30.700
Or maybe it's just the reason many criminals commit a murder. Maybe that's what was at issue
00:29:38.420
here. Psychosis, rage, jealousy, untreated mental illness, or evil.
00:29:47.380
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and get three months free. Offer details apply. As Howard Bloom writes at the end of one of his
00:30:54.340
many excellent pieces on this case, maybe it was a matter of deep-seated envy and resentment from a
00:31:00.980
man whose life had been plagued with anger, disconnection, and an inability to feel human.
00:31:07.420
As Bloom writes, he yearned for the fun he saw at that house. Can you imagine looking at that wild
00:31:14.100
night all the happy frivolity from some hideout in the shadows, and at the same time knowing deep in
00:31:20.320
your dark heart that you would never be a part of anything that exuberant, that beautiful? It would
00:31:26.780
be hell. A hell of unsatisfied desire that could plunge someone deeper and deeper into a tormenting
00:31:33.000
rage. An envy that would be an all-consuming sickness. And in the end, there would be no way out.
00:31:38.860
Just the deed. There are other questions that remain in this case, like where the murder weapon
00:31:46.640
is as we've gone over, and the clothes he must have worn. So far, we believe the police may not have
00:31:53.860
any of that evidence. Perhaps they were dumped along the oddly circuitous wooded drive Kohlberger
00:32:01.640
allegedly took from the murders back home to WSU. As we look back on this case and this week,
00:32:10.060
I want to leave you with some final thoughts from past guests who have been on this show about this
00:32:15.340
case, this suspect, and what is to come. Couldn't imagine him not leaving DNA behind because it's such
00:32:23.800
a violent crime scene. He stabbed four people multiple times. And the chances of either the
00:32:31.320
knife not slipping and cutting him, or one of those victims fighting back and potentially getting his
00:32:36.340
DNA under their fingernails, or just dropping a single hair seems highly unlikely to me.
00:32:42.520
The sheath, if I'm the defense lawyer, does not bother me because somebody, you can have an
00:32:48.320
explanation for that. There's an innocent explanation for that if it's on the button. Somebody else
00:32:53.620
had the knife, obviously, some other person. The bushy eyebrows, that doesn't bother me. If,
00:33:00.360
in fact, as you posit, that there is victim's DNA in his apartment, that's a real problem. I don't
00:33:08.820
know that it's game over, but that's a real, real problem. When people hear DNA nowadays, they do get
00:33:14.980
that. Largely, it goes right. And largely, it doesn't tag somebody else. It doesn't tag the wrong
00:33:22.460
person. And I'm sure they're going to be very careful in handling the samples, I would imagine,
00:33:27.380
knowing that that's going to probably be the most significant evidence that they get,
00:33:31.900
the kind you're talking about. The defendant's DNA all over the room, the victim's DNA in his room,
00:33:38.160
that sort of thing, that kind of combination is, I think it's a knockout punch if that's what they
00:33:42.940
come up. When those handcuffs went on, him, essentially, if he's the guy, his life is over.
00:33:52.860
Life as he knew it is gone. Your level of confidence on a scale of one to 10,
00:33:59.520
that they've got the right guy and he'll be convicted. Let's go down the line. Phil?
00:34:04.020
10. 10 plus. Wow. Bill? 10. Mike? 10 plus plus plus.
00:34:15.780
And now my final thoughts. I believe Brian Kohlberger committed this crime. A life of
00:34:21.840
darkness, deep unhappiness, and of being mentally unwell likely all contributed to a sick fascination
00:34:27.720
with death and what he may have seen as the power that comes from taking a life. The phone,
00:34:33.100
car, and touch DNA evidence may be enough, particularly when coupled with the fact that
00:34:37.860
back home in Pennsylvania, Brian Kohlberger was disposing of his trash in the neighbor's garbage
00:34:44.380
cans. And when police effected the arrest raid, they allegedly caught him wearing gloves,
00:34:50.740
stuffing his own garbage into little Ziploc baggies. Who does that? But this is not an easy case
00:34:57.400
for prosecutors, notwithstanding those facts. The killer was careful. No murder weapon,
00:35:03.820
no bloody clothes. There are some indications that no additional DNA has been found to link
00:35:09.840
Kohlberger to the crime scene, nor any link from the victims to anything found in Kohlberger's
00:35:16.800
apartment. The eyewitness here, the roommate, has only an amorphous description. The killer's medium
00:35:23.220
build and his bushy eyebrows, which will not be enough to qualify as a definitive ID. The car and
00:35:29.520
phone evidence will be mercilessly attacked and picked apart at trial, as will the one minuscule spot
00:35:36.760
of touch DNA on the knife sheath. The jury may wind up confused. That's a defense attorney's goal.
00:35:43.320
In short, the prosecution likely needs more. Maybe they have it. They have held their cards very close
00:35:49.660
to the vest in this case, and certainly the defense would not be leaking the most incriminating evidence
00:35:54.480
against their client Kohlberger. In death penalty cases like this, however, jurors sometimes like to
00:36:01.440
have zero doubts, even though the legal standard, of course, is beyond a reasonable doubt. Does the
00:36:08.100
prosecution have enough to meet this burden? It's not yet clear. For now, we must hope that the DA
00:36:15.340
has more than the office has made public, in particular on the DNA front. And as we wait,
00:36:23.060
we keep the victim's families in our prayers. Kaylee, Maddie, Ethan, and Zanna.
00:36:30.580
Thank you all so much for joining me today and all week. Again, would love to hear your thoughts.
00:36:35.880
Email me, megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com with your thoughts on the case or the special.
00:36:41.400
In the meantime, my family and I will be enjoying Christmas week on vacation, and I hope you're
00:36:48.080
doing the same. It's been a busy but rewarding 2023. Thanks to all of you. My team and I are so
00:36:55.660
grateful for your support of this show, you downloading it, you spreading the good word,
00:37:00.240
and we can't wait to spend 2024 together. It's going to be a huge and important year. All the best to you
00:37:07.700
and yours this holiday season. Merry Christmas and have a great weekend.
00:37:16.020
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.