You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today. Bye Bobby Chicone, all around
Know it All and mister nice guy, Bobby, thank you for joining us
today on Mind over Murder. Thanks for having me. Great to be back.
We wanted to spend a little bit of time today focusing on a question
that has come up in the news recently, and we wanted to get your
thoughts on it because you are one of the most expert experts that we know.
So our question for today concerns the Idaho four case. It concerns the
recent destruction of the King Road residence. So our question for today for you,
Bobby, is did the King Road residence need to remain intact for bran
Coberger's trial or was it okay to tear it down. I'd considered this a
lot, and I've come at it from a couple of different angles. And
I've seen some of my two coin counterparts out there expressing pretty much I think
I have a much different opinion than most of them from my experience as an
investigator, from my experience as a forensic investigator, and from my experience on
the federal level. One thing we do that's different than a lot of detectives
my brother was a detective MBD. We are married at the hip at our
prosecutor, so when we take the case to trial, we really take it
to trial. And as an attorney also that'll we helped me. I sat
at the government table on many big trials, in front of many juries.
My brother, who was a detective, would show up, talk to the
ADA, maybe testify, maybe get prepped. One time the day before,
and that was pretty much it. On the federal level were much more involved
in the trial process and the prep for trial and things like that. And
additionally, the last angle I come at it was a much more recent one.
I recently, for the first time in my life, served as a
jura on a murder trial here in California. I was a jura of for
a five month what they call in California murder with Special Circumstances, which is
a deaf peditively eligible case. And it was a five month trial, and
I sat in the jury box as a jura looking at evidence, and the
murder took place in the victim's home. We had two different forensic teams process
it about a month apart, first the county CSI and then a state CSI,
and they testified at length, and they brought in their pictures and their
drawings and their videos and things. So I think I have a healthy understanding
of the value of a And the first thought that I had when I was
reading a lot of the online stuff and many of my counterparts of the true
crime world is it's more of an emotional response and reaction. It's also people
think that all juries go to the home where the crime took place. And
that's a rarity, and it doesn't happen all the time. There has to
be a special motion made for that to happen, and there has to be
a specific or unique benefit. In my case that I was a jur on
just recently. The house where a murder took place is still standing. It's
about three miles from where I live. And we were one don't go by
the house because you're not supposed to research as a jura. You're only supposed
to consider a thing in the court room that go on the record. So
the judge was always he had a standard daily admonishment, don't watch the news,
don't research this online, don't go by the house. Never in the
trial the five months of the trial that I think we would have benefited from
going and seeing that house. We saw lots of photographs, we saw video,
we heard testimony from the CSI investigators that did all the analysis and showed
us the diagram of the house and where the person was standing and how the
perpetrators got into the house. And so I never thought that it would benefit
us much. Standing in the kitchen where he was stabbed. It at but
two men. Both of them testified, and I think there's an emotional reaction.
I know that the families of the victims in Idaho were against it when
I heard I always defer to the prosecutors. The prosecutors this case have the
most knowledge inside knowledge of the evidence that they need to get a conviction.
And believe me, they don't want to lose this case. They don't want
to be the next martial clock. They don't want to be a person who
loses a high profile case. The prosecutors do not want that. And so
if they had any concern that leaving that house in place would help them convict
Brin Coburger or destroying the house would compromise in any way their ability to convict
Barron Coburger, believe me, they would have wanted and made a motion to
keep that house in place. Now, the other thing to remember is that
house is private property. It doesn't belong to the state. It doesn't.
I don't know if it belongs to the university or not. It does now.
It was private property in it was donated to the University of Idaho by
the landlord. I think the landlord was trying to get out from Monday.
Sure but he donated that after the murders. Correct, And my understanding is
that they're going to put like a monument there or something to the victims,
which is I think appropriate. But the actual benefit of having the jury,
if the jury was going to visit the house at all, they may not
have, and most murder trials they don't, even if the house is available
and still standing. It's more for TV. Got a lot on TV and
stuff, but in reality, most murder trials take place without the jury going
to the house, and certainly in the case that I just and by the
way, we found guilty on all ten counts, including murder with special circumstances,
without having to go to the house. The CSI investigators did a great
job at laying out the foundation of what they did in the house, and
we saw the video and the walkthroughs and the drawings and the photographs and all
the lab examinations. So I think there is an emotional kind of argument,
don't do anything that might even remotely risk. But when I heard the prosecutors
in this case did not have a problem with it, I said, you
know what, I will defer to their judgment. They know more about this
case than I do they probably mock trial this, which means they probably had
a jury come in, maybe people at work in the office, and hear
potential testimony. And I think that in the overall weight of the evidence that
they have, they think they are probably pretty sure that they can get a
conviction without the jury visiting that house. And so the defense and the prosecutor
both agreed. For me, once I heard the prosecutors did not protest the
house being destroyed, that was good enough for me. You're uniquely qualified to
talk about this, Bobby, because not only have you been a career FBI
agent, you've also worked in film and TV, written and produced for television.
So is the idea of the jury getting on a bus and trapesing off
to go look at a murder scene? Is that more of a creation of
what we watch on our televisions. It does happen, And I've been trying
to research this on and I can't find like the percentage of times that happens,
but it's been very low. It's not every jury, it's not even
half the jury's. It's got to be very low. And each state,
of course, has different laws respect to murder. Although I prosecute a lot
of murder cases on the federal level, and because there's a lot of violations
that if you kill somebody during your bank robbery, if you kill somebody during
your kidnapping. In my case, we had a murder charge called murder and
native racketeering, which means if you're a member of a gang or mafia family
and you committed a murder to either maintain or increase your standing in that criminal
organization, that's a federal murder, that's a federal crimes. I have a
lot of experience prosecuting murders on the federal side. It was unheard of to
actually do a jury visit to the scene of the crime. And like I
said, I think each state is different. There are different rules about when
you can make that motion and why. In most cases, I would think
you've got to show some additional benefit because look, CSI teams nowadays are very
sophisticated the tools that they have, and even in the King's Roadhouse, by
the way, after the CSI teams went through it, the FBI came in
with a laser scan team. It was called on total station when I was
doing it. The technology is obviously much more dance now, but they can
come in and they can literally do three D or a four D scan of
the house, and they can do computer graphics that can really take you inside
that house these days, for whatever benefit the jury might get out of that.
So I think that this case in some ways will call out a little
more for the jury knowing, because I think the movement of the perpetrator in
this case, the movement through that house, is going to be an issue.
And I think we already heard that with from some of the defense,
like he was only in there X number of minutes and how could he do
this and get here and get there? But I think with computer generated graphics
and with pictures and photographs and video people walking through, I don't think you
get that much more of an additional benefit by actually standing in that house.
I think that the jury's going to be taken through that house in detail with
both the computer graphics and stuff, and you'll be able to see, what
was it eight minutes? So I remember when it first came out, they're
like, oh my god, he was only in there X number of minutes.
So I think his movement through the house, upstairs, downstairs, down
a hallway into a room, I think that's all going to be relevant and
it's going to come out. So I think in that respect, I think
people said, oh my god, don't destroy the house because it's going to
be an issue. The defense may allege he could not have done it in
the time frame that the prosecuting sution is setting out. But I think you're
going to be able to show that he could do that in that timeframe with
computer graphics, with sketches, with photographs, with video, and I think
the prosecution probably obviously feels that way, or they wouldn't have been okay with
the house being destroyed. Are there times that you can think of when it
might be a truly terrible idea to bring a jury to a crime scene.
Has there been a time that you're aware of, or circumstances that you can
think of, in which a jury was brought to the crime scene to visit
and it was like, oh, man, we miscalculated. This is terrible.
This should not have happened. Personally, I think, like in almost
any case, that could be because what you're doing when you bring a jury
to a crime scene, like every time you do something like that, either
in the courtroom or outside, you're giving the defense a chance to muddy the
waters. And the more chances the defense has of mudding the waters. Remember
they only have to get one reasonable doubt in one person to get that acquittal.
You open up an opportunity, possible opportunity for the defense. And I
think that's one of the things the prosecution consider it. It's this is another
chance for the defense to get the jury in a mindset of oh no,
it couldn't have So I think they're very confident what they have to show the
jury as far as sketches and videos and photographs and computer graphics or whatever.
And I think that they may have felt and I think this is probably true
in a lot of cases, is getting the jury out of the courtroom and
getting them into a visceral environment. It could create another opportunity for the defense,
and you always try to minimize those opportunities. And I think that everybody
has a different everybody's in a different physical fitness thing and all that, and
not everybody who's dene is like these ultra marathon runners will go around the world
running races. I get tired of just looking at a Facebook teetles. So
I think everybody comes at it with a different fitness level. Somebody could get
in there and say, oh yeah, I can see somebody getting from the
ed end of that whole way out that door and up those stairs, and
somebody else might not. It's in a different physical state. So I think
that any chance you can get to minimize the amount of opportunities the defense has
to muddy the waters is a good thing, because that's all they need,
one doubt in one juror's mind, and they're successful. And so I think
that in many cases, I can't I've actually thought about this. I can't
think of a reason that the jury would benefit by a physical visit to the
house, considering you're going to have professional CSI investigators sitting in the witness chair
saying this is what I did, these are the sketches I made, these
are the photographs I took, and this is where this was found. This
is where that was found. The level of sophistication in the CSI teams.
And I just sat through in my trial two different CSI teams, one one
from the camp and went from the state of California in my trial, and
they did tremendous jobs at taking us through the crime scene. And the house
is still available. The house where our victim was killed was still standing.
But I don't even think that I would have benefited much as a Jura walking
through that house, knowing what I know from the crime scene investigator's testimony in
there and what they brought in as far as their exhibits. I've racked my
brain about it. I think that in another kind of case, it might
be different if if you had an eyewitness, and this is one of those
things, if you had an eye witness, and we do have an eyewitness
in this case, right, But if you have an eyewitness, say that
says I was standing in the apartment window and I looked across the street and
this is what I saw. But then when you get on scene and you
realize anybody standing in that window at this time of night probably couldn't see what
they're claiming they saw, So something like that it might help. But I
don't think that you have that in this case. I think you have the
one eyewitness potential kind of if you want to call them, I guess we
can call them an eyewitness. But the one roommate who saw him walk at
her and then but that really wasn't I think her testimony, which I'm assuming
we're going to hear is going to be enough. I don't think the jurists
have to stand where she was standing at the time of night, because you're
not going to get them in there at four am. I think that her
testimony will stand on its own. If she's believable, the jury will be
able to believe it. And I think that I'm not making any judgment on
her testimony. I'm just saying that I think from her testimony, I don't
think the jury would get any additional benefit of standing where physically where she was
standing, because she's going to testify to where she was standing or what she
saw, and then the CSI investigators are going to show that where she was
standing through their analysis and their work as well. So I think that from
the things that I saw, it falls into two categories. The people that
are outraged that the house is being demolished. Number one is lack of experience
in the courtroom, and number two, it's more of an emotional response,
for example, the families and things like that. And I think that there's
this fear of don't do anything that could potentially jeopardize the convictions. And I
get that. I get that concern, but it's probably in this case such
a minuscule actional benefit if any. And I think the prosecutors weighed that before
they came out with a position, because the prosecution does work with the families.
They talk to the families. Even before the arrest, they were working
with the families and things. And I know that the prosecution's decision goes against
some of the family wishes, but I think in this case, now that
they've got to defend at in custody facing trial, I think their main concern
is for that conviction. Not that you ever want to go against the family
wishes, but the family's not trying the case. The prosecutor are trying the
case. They have the experience in these kinds of cases, and they don't
want to lose this case. Believe me, if they thought that it would
compromise their ability to get a conviction, they would not have been on board
with destroying the house. I just have to feel that way. I don't
know these prosecutors. I don't know, but I know in general, I
know prosecutors are many good friends of Mint. Of prosecutors. You both know,
Fancy Haik's a good friend of mine, and Chant former state federal prosecutor.
We've talked about this, and the prosecutors are comfortable with it, and
they know most about the evidence against Coberger. Then I'm pretty comfortable that they
feel that there's not a tremendous amount, if any, benefit of keeping that
house in place. They might not have, even at the thousands in place,
the judge may not have let the jury go and visit the house.
It's got to be certain. It's not It doesn't happen in every case,
and there has to be a certain you have to have. You have to
show how the jury will benefit by going physically to the house, beyond what
testimony and exhibits they're going to see in the court. Do you think there's
a desire on the part of prosecutors to control And I don't mean that in
a judgmental way, but in other words, they want a tightly focused,
strong presentation that's in depth, that shows detail and builds the narrative, the
story that they're trying to convince the jury this is how we believe this crime
took place. And anything that's outside of their focused but fair presentation is too
much of an X factor for them. Oh sure, And that's what I'll
to by saying they don't want to give the defense any opportunity to bring something
in that could just muddy the waters. That no, because remember the defense
doesn't have to prove anything, they just have to muddy the waters and create
a doubt in one juror's mind. And yeah, I definitely believe that prosecutors
are sometimes fearful of those opportunities and they look for those opportunities, they look
to limit those opportunities of the defense to do that. And I think that
when you want the jury to make the decisions based on the evidence that comes
out in the courtroom, through testimony and through exhibits on the record, and
you want them to make that there's always going to be some emotional level,
on some level, some emotional investment by the jury in the case, of
course, even in the case I just sat. As a jury, they
want us to feel for the victim, and you always do. But I
think you also want on some level the jurors to be objective and to be
Okay, here's the objective evidence, and you don't want them making too much
of an emotional decision. You want them basing the decision on the evidence presented
at trial, and I think that a visit to the house house is more
of a visceral type of experience and will more likely go towards a emotional response,
because again, they're going to be presented with all the CSI material,
the investigators are going to testify, they're going to bring in all of the
exhibits, and so they're going to know. So the only benefit they'll have
a standing in that house is going to be a visceral slash emotional one.
And the prosecution probably doesn't need that or want that. They want the juris
to look at the evidence objectively presented to them in court on the record and
make their decision. And I think they feel confident that they have enough of
that evidence for twelve people to be conventionnanimously of Coburger's guilt. Can you talk
a little bit about some of the technology that's available that can place the jury
like at the scene that would make go into a scene completely unnecessary. You
referenced doing a laser scan of the house. Talk about some of that technology
that's available. An easy way for people to think about it is now days,
if you're going to if you search, if you're like in the in
the market for a new house. There's rarely time when you can go on
Zillow or realtor dot com or whatever where there's not a video visit to the
house. Right, they go through the house with these drones and you can
stop and you can do a three sixty look at down the hallway and things.
Well, take something like that and blow it up on steroids, because
that's what the CSI teams have now. And so not only when you look
at a house one view of it, right, the CSI teams with that
computers, they can take a house and they can do it right now at
four o'clock in the afternoon. They can take all their video stuff and then
they can make it look like it's for in the morning. They can do
that with the computers. And so they they're going to make it feel like
you've walked through that house. They can do that, and now I don't
know if they will, but they certainly can. I've seen the technology that's
available. And then some BSI teams use that can make it feel like you're
walking right through that house just like you would on reeltor dot com or zillo
or whatever one of those things you use. You can stop at any point,
and you can rotate ten degrees, forty degrees this way, whatever,
and you can look. And so I think that's the type of and most
of us have seen that stuff. So I'm relating that to most of people
that know what I'm talking about because they've seen that on realtor websites and stuff,
and so I think it's like that, but much more boosted. You're
going to be able to know exactly what that house was. The furniture is
going to be laid out exactly. They already have videos so they know where
every piece of furniture, every mark on the wall, everything is going to
be in that computer generated thing and or the video that the CSIS took while
they were in there. I want to switch to yours for a second,
Bobby, and not move too quickly past this recent trial that you were involved
in. Both Kristin and I had the same reaction when we were talking to
you the other day. We were so surprised, how the heck does a
jury end up including a person who is a former FBI agent, longtime investigator,
and an attorney. I feel like you've got three strikes against you because
of all your experts, not that many years ago, I was asked to
be on a jury that involved a violent crime, and the judge asked,
is there anyone here whose lives have been impacted by a violent crime? And
I said yes, and he asked me and I told him, and at
first he looked at me, like, you're not making this up. Your
sister's a murder victim. But I told him briefly what had happened. And
they couldn't get me off that jury fast enough. And this wasn't even a
murder trial, this was a violent assault. How does someone like you,
with all of your expertise end up on a jury. That's a good question.
All my colleagues and all my families say this, have asked the same
thing. And I don't know the answer other than I go every year when
I get called for jury duty, and I show up, or I do
the phone thing, call in and if you have to show up the next
day, we'll let you know the night before. And I've always done that,
and sometimes some years you don't have to show up. And some years
I go in and sit in the big room and don't get into a small
room. And then some years I get into the small room and then you
get questioned, and then you get thrown off, and so all of those
things have happened to me over the last ten years. I go every year
what I'm called, I do my civic duty. This year, I did
the same thing. On June fifth. I went into the courthouse and we
went from the big rooms to the small room, and then then they put
a bunch of people in and we asked a bunch of questions what we call
wardier. They asked you those questions that you said, and a bunch of
things. And in this particular case, we knew because they told us if
the big group was separated, and then a smaller group, but still a
big group went into the court group so maybe fifty sixty people, and they
said, this is going to be a five month trial. It's a murder
with special circumstances trial. So they had us fill out this big took us
like two hours to fell this big questionnaire, and then we were able to
leave and come back the next day. They prosecuted, and the defense had
a chance to read those questionnaires I laid out. I was an FBI agent
for twenty seven years. My dad was a cop, my brother was a
cop, I'm attorney, and so they started they were going to pick twelve
jurors and ten alternates. Because it was a five month trial. You're going
to lose people, and they knew that. And so when it was my
turn to be wardired, the prosecutor of course had no problem with me being
on the jury, and the defense asked me questions, and they said,
I think they were more interested and more desirous of my knowledge of the law
and the presumption of innocence and the burden on the government to prove everything,
And so he questioned me. The Defense Council questioned me at length. When
I was in the FBI, one of my kind of little side duties was
I taught non agent non attorney agents that means they were FBI agents and warrant
attorneys plenty of that. I taught them fortally legal instruction. So I taught
them mainly fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments, and so we would get
a packet from our principal legal advisor. Every office has one. It mainly
related to adverse rulings. So if the FBI lost the suppression hearing, when
the second Circuit, or my case, the Eastern District of New York.
Any adverse rulings against the FBI anywhere in the country, we would have to
review them, and then we would prepare a lecture for the other agents and
say, hey, look it was an agent Saint Louis. This is what
happened and the evidence got suppressed. This is why let's not do that.
You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from
our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. The defense council knew that
I taught fourth, fifth and sixth Amenment issues and he had by and that
I worked with informants and cooperating witnesses. And the interesting thing was this was
a case with six people charged with murder, but there was only one of
those six was the defendant at my trial for a number of reasons, and
he actually was during the course of the trial, during the course of the
case, during the murder, the conspiracy, he was an informant for the
San Francisco Police Department. There was a layer of confusion and a layer of
the defense was going to allege that he was not guilty. And I think
that he thought that I could help the rest of my fellow jurors with some
of those issues and how an informant operates and all that kind of stuff.
And the San Francisco detective testified for the defense in the case, and it
was a multi layer case. It was very interesting. There's been a poorly
written book about the case. Dateline was in the courtroom every day, and
Dateline is now episode about the case. I think the defense council thought and
quite frankly rightfully, so that I would be fair and objective and look after.
I will admit after the opening statements the very first day, when the
prosecutor laid out the case and the defense came up, I was not convinced
of guilt. Day one of the trial and just in a nutshell, the
prosecution admitted to the fact that there were six people involved in the conspiracy commit
murder. There were two people that carried out. Only two people carried out
the murder. Both of them testified. One said he did it, one
said I don't know what you're talking about. It wasn't there. But the
prosecution pointed to the defendant and said, we admit that guy sitting over there
didn't know either of the two killers. Never spoke to them, never exchanged
emails with them, never had a text with them or a phone call with
them. But he's just as guilty of the murder as they are. And
you'll hear from them. One will testify for us and one will testify for
the defense. And so I'm like, if he didn't have any connection to
the two killers, one of whom's going to come in here and tell us
that they killed them and say, I don't know that guy the dramatic scene
and TV, do you see the defendant the courtroom today? Can you point
him out? Neither killer could because they never knew the guy. They never
met this guy. They never met him, they never change in text with
him. Wow. And so I'm sitting there day two of the Trigo and
Okay, prosecution, you better bring your a game because right now, if
I were just from opening statements, I would not be finding him guilty beyond
a reasonable doubt. And during the course of the trial, obviously there was
a lot of evidence that came out that he knew what was going on.
He knew those two guys were hired by his friend. He kept peppering his
friend with questions about who these guys were, with a competent to pull off
the job. Once the night of the murder, he was texting his friend,
are they done yet? Can I go back in the house and get
the artwork. So there was a lot of texts between him and his buddy,
who hired the two killers. His buddy was previously convicted of the murder.
So it was one of those things where I don't think the defense was
too worried about me just coming in saying, oh, anybody in the police
arrest is guilty, because first of all, I wouldn't have done that.
I was coming in there with a very objective. I knew what the presumption
of innocence was, and I knew the bird. The government had to meet
with me and with at least a handful of my fellow jurors. Once we
got in the room, I was elected dury Foreman. It was the closing
statements in the prospers you should actually push the ball over the line. They
had the graphics where they moving graphics where they showed the times of the texts
and the locations and the phones and all of the different players. The conspiracy
just really came to life and took on the color of the conspiracy because we
had a lot of technical testimony about cell phone towers and how cell phones work,
and by the way, that's going to be detailed in the Coburger case
as well. And that was key here because they were admitting this guy didn't
know them. He wasn't there when the murders took place. He didn't know
the guys that killed him. He never talked to them or texted them.
And so the movement of the phones and the texts and the timing of the
text and they did that all on this moving graphic where you just see you
see all the stuff that small bits of evidence all came up and created this
picture and an amazing job in closing, And a couple of my fellow jurors
said, yeah, like I wasn't convinced until that closing. In the closing
he was showing you evidence that came into the record. But it was so
much of a five months that he was able to tie it all together.
And I think we deliberated about eight hours or nine hours before we had a
verdict on all ten counts. There was a murder account, and then there
was a bunch of fraud counts. They emptied the victim's IRA and his bank
accounts and his house, and actually they were trying to sell his house.
There was a lot of fraud charges too, because they did a power of
attorney, a fake power of attorney to try to sell his estate. And
that's how ultiably they were caught. But yeah, so that's as a long
answer to a question of I don't know how I got on. You'd have
to ask the defense attorney. But I definitely went in there with an open
mind, and I definitely, on day one or two year trial, was
not convinced that that guy's guilt. But you have to know conspiracies, and
conspiracies are if you do substantial action furtherance of the conspiracy, then you're just
as guilty as the people who pulled a trigger in this case stabbed the victim.
And then that was the case. The prosecution put on an overwhelming amount
of evidence into the record that proved his role in the conspiracy. So it
goes to show you that a strong close and closing argument is actually much more
important than a strong opening. So that's why they don't call it an opening
argument. They call it an opening statement. So they have an opening statement
and a closing argument. Because when you make an opening statement. It really
is just that it's just a statement. It's not supported by anything. It's
just your opening statement. We're going to show you the evidence says this and
this. But then a closing argument, your argument is supported by the facts
in the record. So really it's an opening statement and a closing argument.
The argument is supported by the evidence, and they say that in the record,
because you're not allowed to argue anything in your closing argument that isn't supported
by the record. You can say almost anything in opening statements, but in
closing argument you have to point to evidence that came in the record. So
the prosecutor say, and here's the data that came in through so and so
from at and T. Remember him, he came in and told you this
and so when he was painting that picture, he was also referencing the witnesses
and the evidence in the record that was established during the trial. He can't
just say that. So all of the closing arguments have to be supported by
the record. And then when you go into when we went into the jury
room, we have three carts of buying and evidence and we open them up.
And because one of the jurors was really not convinced and stuff, and
so we opened everything up and we looked at it, and we went through
it again, and one or two juris so we all and even me I
wanted a little more after hearing the closing argument. Oh yeah, he really
painted the picture. And then we opened those binders, we went through the
evidence and we satisfied ourselves that, yeah, the evidence was there overwhelmingly.
That's the thing when when a lot of a lot of the defense says anything
in the opening statement, but then when you get to closing arguments, you
have to you only have to stick to what's in the record. I know
that there's really no way of knowing exactly what is going to come down the
road with the Coburger trial, but informed speculation here, what do you think
we can expect to see when the case does go to trial in terms of
evidence presented, motions made, and various other things. There's not a lot
in this case, right, there's I think that if we focus on the
things that we know, right that the bar movement, the Whydlantra. You
know, he admits that he was driving around during the crime, right,
he has to admit that, right because they have that. But why was
he driving around at four am. And had he ever done that before?
And have they given any kind of estimate on the length of the trial.
I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen anything. Now, yeah, they
must know approximately because I'm going through my head and I'm thinking, Okay,
how many witnesses are you going to actually have in this case? I don't
know. You may obviously the two roommates that survived will probably testify. The
CSI people will testify. Obviously, the FBI team that went through and did
those scans of the house will probably testify. And then maybe some people that
know Coburger may testify. I don't know their evidentiary value of knowing him,
so I don't know. Some of that comes in the sensing phase of the
penalty phase, sometimes afterwards, like the families won't. I don't think the
families will testify, so the penalty phase, if there is a penalty phase,
I hope there is. I don't see a whole lot of witnesses.
I think you're going to have video witnesses that can testify. Yes, that's
a why Lantra. A lot of technical stuff like that we had in my
trial, which we might have in this trial. Somebody come in and say,
Okay, here's how a cell tower works, and it pings off here,
brings off there. Because if you look at a cell tower in a
map, you draw a circle around it. And if he pinged off that
tower doesn't mean he was to the left of the tower. He could have
been to the right of the tower, or the north to the tower,
to the south of He could be anywhere in this circle. That's what we're
gonna say. I mean he was over here. He could be anywhere in
this circle. So you lay the circle over there. And so I think
you'll have technical testimony on how cell towers work. That's what we had,
how techts work and different things. But as I think the defense is going
to remember, it doesn't have to be a defense. The defense can sit
back and force the prosecutor, which is their burden and their obligation, to
prove beyonder reasonable without his guilt, and that's it. The defense can sit
on their hands. They don't have to give a reason for anything that the
prosecution says. They don't have to respond to it. They just have to
sit pad and they may challenge some of the evidence both pre trial and hearings
and at the trial they may have their own experts come in, and the
defense is allowed to get the lab reports from CSI teams that did it,
and they can have their own independent people review those lab results and say it's
not what the government, but the prosecutor's expert says, it means something else.
Or you might have some of that. You might have DNA experts come
in and say, look, we all lived through the OJ trial a generation
ago, where they had DNA evidence and somehow his attorneys, his team of
attorneys was able to convince a jury that DNA evidence didn't mean what the overwhelming
opinion of the scientific community in DNA says it meant. You're going to probably
have some of that. They're probably going to have a defense DNA expert come
in and say that DNA does not mean what the government says it means.
And so you'll there'll be a couple of battles of the experts I think number
one on the DNA side, number two on the cell phone side. But
that's if the defense choose to challenge that. They don't have to, but
they can choose to challenge that, and they can bring their own experts in
that say something different, and so I think that's what you're going to have.
I can't see it being a five month trial like I just do.
But we had six defended. We have one defendant, but six people involved
in the conspiracy, and so they had to tie are defendant to the conspiracy,
which was more difficult. It was never alleged that he did the murder.
So here you have the defendant did the murders, right, and they
think they can place the defendant in that house at the time of the murders,
which is crucial. So the defense, if the defense is going to
challenge anything, it has to challenge Coburger's presence in that house, right,
So it has to somehow attack that DNA because that's the prosecutors proved two things,
right, The prosecutor proof is that DNA on that knife sheath, that
thumb snap, and then the eyewitness. It's going to be easier for them
to attack the DNA because that's just science. You're not attacking a person.
Yeah, just science. No. Yeah, it's harder to attack basically a
victim because the two roommates. There are some victims as far as I'm concerned,
and so then it's harder to attack a young college girl who's going to
be probably very emotional on the stand if they do testify, and it's harder
for defense to go after something like that because it makes you look heartless.
It's easy to attack science because it is not an emotional attachment to science,
right, there's most attachment to this young girl who's been through this very traumatic
event, So it's going to be harder for them to attack. But then
on the other hand, the DNA is much more exact. The DNA says
that's the guy, with the exclusion of millions of whatever how many of the
billions of people. But the eyewin is they don't have to attack her as
much because she didn't get a good look at Coberger. In all honesty,
it was dark. His face was covered. Right, Oh, we've heard
so far the bushy eyebrows, which match. It's not like DNA that says,
to the exclusion of a billion other people, that's the guy. So
they don't have to attack her testimony as much as they have to attack.
They really have to attack that DNA because if you put him in that room
that night, I think it's game over. Makes sense, Do you just
based on what you know about this guy, do you think he's going to
try to testify in his own defense. I think, yeah, yes,
the simple answer to your Christians, yes, I think he will try.
I think he will be persuaded. I don't think he will because I think
his attorneys will dissuade him from doing that, and every attorney does that,
by the way. In my case, the defendant did testify in his own
defense, and quite frankly, he didn't do too bad for himself in our
trial. I think, you know, there's a level of arrogance maybe on
Coburger's part or something that we haven't seen that on full display because we really
haven't heard too much from him, But there's an underlying I don't know.
I hate to judge anybody about how they look or how they carry themselves,
but we all do that anyway, and there does seem to be a little
bit of level of arrogance. We saw a little bit of it on the
police body cameras when they pulled him over on the road, but that's the
only real look we've had at him. And I think that he's the type
that wants to get up there and because I think this whole thing, he
thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and he thinks he'll be able
to get up there and dance around the prosecutors, which he won't, and
his attorneys will tell him he won't. It's not like you're going to have
a free flow debate. The rules of testimony favor the people asking the questions.
I've been a witness in many trials. You just don't get up are
aside. Because Murda was allowed to, in my opinion, spout his testimony
way beyond what the prosecutor should have let him do. They should have cut
him off, like our prosecutor my case when I was a jura, when
our defendant testified for himself, they caught him off. You ask yes or
no questions. You don't let him expound. You get him cornered, and
you get him a little frustrated because they want to talk more. Murder allowed
to talk, in my opinion, way longer than he ever should have been.
But Coberger, if he does take the stand, the prosecutor is not
going to allow him to give some monologue. They're going to close him in.
They're going to box him in with the answer no questions and get it
very frustrated because the rules, do they favor the questioner, they favor the
defense or the course examiner has a big advantage over the witness, regardless of
what you saw in the murderer case they do. If they do, what
if the witness does not is not allowed to sit there and debate and argue
and stuff. And that's why, by the way, most defense attorneys almost
always counsel their clients not to get on the stand because they know on cross
examination the prosecutor is going to have the advantage. And where we do see
it, we've seen it recently. I think his attorneys will advise him against
it. Whether or not they prevail upon him is anybody's guess. I don't
have a good enough guess because I haven't seen enough of him. I think
he will try, he will want to, his attorneys will tell him not
to. But who prevails, I don't know. I don't know. I
think the attorneys will prevail. But his parents may be there and say,
listen to your attorneys. They know, but what's best for you. That's
why you hire them, that's why you pay them. Do what they say,
because they just like the prosecutor I said earlier, they don't want to
lose the case. Defense doesn't want to lose it either. So if he's
saying, don't take the stand, if the defense attorney thinks the client taking
the stand will help rather, they're going to be a proponent of that,
But they almost never do because it almost never does benefit the defendant. Again,
ultimately, the defendant has the right belongs to them. You have a
lawyer for a reason to give you legal advice, and they've been in the
court room a lot more than you have, and who knows whether they will
prevail. I'm getting Ted Bundy testifying in his own defense as his own lawyer
vibes from Bran Coberger, which is why I asked the question, Yeah,
but Bundy was he was a law school student, did he ever? Yeah?
Finished, but he had enough legal knowledge and and Coburger probably has enough
criminal justice knowledge to think that he could beat the prosecutor at this game,
but he won't. I pick up the same vibe. If Brian Coberger spoke,
for instance, on television tonight, I wouldn't recognize his voice. I
don't think I've ever heard him saying out loud. I've seen him on camera
in the courtroom, but he does give you that vibe that he thinks he's
smarter than anybody else. Yeah, it's just those little snippets from that Pennsylvania
whatever the state police they pulled over. You just heard his voice very briefly
then, and obviously in court it's always yes you're on and no you're on,
that kind of thing. It's never really enough to get a good handle
on him. But I'm with you. The physical posturing and all that kind
of stuff tells me, and quite frankly from some of his former students and
classmates that I've seen, seem to indicate this guy thought he was all that.
Oh, let's spend a minute on this before we close, because you
brought up something really interesting, and you worked FBI cases for twenty seven years.
Do you think the law enforcement officers pulling Coburger and his father over twice
within a matter of minutes was that deliberate or not? Yeah. So the
FBI came out and said they didn't orchestrate it, right, and I believe
that's to be the case. I thought they did orchestrate it until they made
that statement, because and they could make the statement, try to fool they
wouldn't. The FBI wouldn't do that because it would risk the state case.
If the FBI is caught lying, that's not good for the state case.
And if you orchestra, by the way, if the FPI did orchestrate it,
and I did orchestrate those kind of things when I was with the FBI,
it's perfectly proper. There's nothing improper about that. There were many times
when I was following mobsters around New York City and I needed to know who
was in the car with him, and I would radio, and my partner
was an NYBD detective. He'd get on his citywide radio and radio the local
precinct and have a car just follow first traffic infraction, pull them over the
first time he rolls, door, stopped sign or something. Pull him over
idea, everybody in the car if you can. And that's perfectly proper.
But if I was going to do that with the FBI, it would have
been the first stop, because if you're following them the way they were,
you pull him over, you identify him, whatever information you need to get
during this what we call pretext stop you obtain. You don't pull him over
the second time right away, because that second stop certainly wasn't orchestrated, because
the last thing you want to do is let him get him raised up,
because if you pull him over twice, because I know my mobsters, we
pull him over once. They were because a lot of times we had bugs
in the cars. And the minute they pulled away from the company, said,
I think that was the FBI must have told them to do it.
They're wise to us a lot of time and otherwise on one stop and so
a second stop, then they know that the gig is up. Right.
When I first saw that, I said, oh, the bu're probably orchestrated
that first stop. And then it was just a really bad coincidence that the
second stop happened because he was speeding or tailgating, and so then you would
go, oh, no, they pulled him over again. They didn't know,
because then he would be like, what are the chances because his own
head, not his father's said, but in his own head, he's like,
I just killed four people, and now they pulled me over twice in
ten miles. He would start to raise up and then he maybe take some
actions, which by the way, he did anyway, what we call friends
of countermeasures, which is cleaning the car and throwing his trash in the neighbor's
trash. All of that is fronts of countermeasures. So that may have been
spurred by those two stops too close together, or it maybe just he was
going to do that. Anyway, we won't know. We'll never know unless
he tells us. But yeah, when I first heard it, I thought
the first one was orchestrated and the second was just bad luck on law enforcement
because he might raise up on it. But then when the FBI came out
and said, but you have to look at the FBI statement that they said
they didn't orchestrated. That doesn't mean the state police did not auchstras. Okay,
you know what doesn't mean. But if it was orchestrated at all,
I would think it was the second. The first stop was orchestrated, I
don't think. And even if you were going to do it and then somebody
else trumped you and did it first, you'd be like, oh my god,
let's wait a couple of states. Let's wait a day or like three
estates before we pull them over again. Not so close together, you wouldn't.
So that second one was almost certainly not orchestrated, because you wouldn't want
unless you just didn't care and you missed something on the first stop and said,
damn, we got to when we did that too. Yeah, so
we didn't get that. But they really didn't do a whole lot. They
didn't get them out of the car if you pull them out of the car
and you look in the trunk or whatever. That happens on some car stops,
but they didn't do that. So I don't know that they got anything
more on the second stop than they already had from the first stop. So
my theory is if one of those was orchestrated, it was the first one.
I just don't see the second one being orchestrated because you would be afraid
you're tipping off your defendant, and you'd wait a couple of states before you
pull them over again. And it sounds like Coberger may have had a heavy
foot and had a tendency to follow too closely, which is I think the
pretext for why he was pulled over. Yeah. Look, most people make
it easy. Those pretext stops are you don't have to follow somebody too long
anywhere for them to commit a traffic violation. And that's that's why they're so
easy to do, because people get pulled over all the time for traffic violations,
rolling to a stop sign, not coming to a full stop at a
red light. When you do a right on red, everybody rolls right through
those red lights. Right, you have to come to a full stop at
a red light before you make the right. That's one of the easy ones
to do. And so yeah, it doesn't take much to follow you,
maybe less than five minutes before someone's going to commit a traffic infraction. I
got to tell you, Bobby, I definitely feel a lot more enlightened,
and I feel much better about the decision now to have destroyed that house on
King's Road, because I think I, like everybody else, when that first
happened, my gut instinct, like you said, was oh my god,
this is going to be horrible for the child. What if they need it?
And as a teacher my general role for kids, it's better to have
it and not need it than need it and not have it. Given what
you've just told us, I feel a whole lot better about that decision,
and I totally understand where you're coming from. So thank you for taking the
time to enlighten us about that. Thank you for having me. Yeah again,
I get the emotional response, and even me like, on some level
I probably would prefer the house still be there until he's convicted, but we
don't know how long that's going to take. Just because there's a potential trial
date, that doesn't mean that's when it's going to happen. We don't know
when it's going to happen. Really, once I heard the prosecutors are okay
with it, then I'm okay with it. Bobby, Thanks for letting us
your expertise. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me again, you
guys, great to see you both. That's going to do it for this
episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see
you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another
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