Speaker 1: Dot com. What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. Today,
Speaker 1: we're gonna jump right back into some of the headlines
Speaker 1: that have been making the news over the past couple
Speaker 1: of days and see where things currently stand as of today.
Speaker 1: This article was published by the Independent. The authors of
Speaker 1: this article are Rachel Sharp and Andrea Blanco. Headline Idaho
Speaker 1: murders Brian Coberger's eyebrows tied him to student killings as
Speaker 1: defense responds to evidence Brian Coberger's distinct eyebrows may have
Speaker 1: first linked him to the thirteenth of November murders of
Speaker 1: Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. So,
Speaker 1: like we talked about in the previous episode, it was
Speaker 1: the eyebrows that really tip the cops off to Brian Coohberger. Originally,
Speaker 1: obviously it was just a part of the evidence, not
Speaker 1: all of the evidence that they had, but it certainly
Speaker 1: put them on the tail of Brian Cohberger. FBI agents
Speaker 1: lost Brian Cohberger for hours while he was under surveillance.
Speaker 1: Investigators working on the Idaho murders case lost Brian Coburger
Speaker 1: for several hours during the cross country trip from his
Speaker 1: apartment at Washington State University to his family home in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: It has been revealed surveillance teams were tasked with keeping
Speaker 1: eyes on the twenty eight year old criminology PhD student
Speaker 1: after he became a person of interest in the November
Speaker 1: thirteenth murders of Kailee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Xana Kernodle, and
Speaker 1: Ethan Chapin. But on December thirteenth, when he began the
Speaker 1: journey home for the holidays with his father, FBI agents
Speaker 1: managed to lose him almost as soon as their car
Speaker 1: pulled out of the parking lot at his graduate housing.
Speaker 1: That is some Keystone cop type shit right there. How
Speaker 1: do you lose him right when he pulls out of
Speaker 1: the parking lot. I mean, I can understand losing them
Speaker 1: during the trip maybe, but right out of the parking lot.
Speaker 1: What were you guys doing. The shocking revelation has come
Speaker 1: to light in air mails The Eyes of a Killer
Speaker 1: of Part two, citing law enforcement sources who admitted that
Speaker 1: for several alarming hours or more, the man believed to
Speaker 1: have brutally stabbed for University of Idaho's students to death
Speaker 1: had seemingly vanished. Hours later, the car finally picked miles
Speaker 1: away in Colorado and surveillance resumed. Mister Coburger was arrested
Speaker 1: on December thirtieth at his family home and is now
Speaker 1: behind bars in Moscow on murder charges. And that could
Speaker 1: have turned out to be a real disaster for the
Speaker 1: federal government. Imagine everybody's out here worrying that the local
Speaker 1: police department is going to flup things up, only to
Speaker 1: have the FBI screw up the surveillance and let Brian
Speaker 1: Cohberger slither away. Yeah, that wouldn't look too good if
Speaker 1: they weren't able to pick him back up and he
Speaker 1: was engaging in other crimes. Thankfully that didn't happen, and
Speaker 1: thankfully they were able to pick him back up and
Speaker 1: tail him again in Colorado. But it could have ended
Speaker 1: a different way. Possible animal hair was found that Idaho
Speaker 1: murder suspects Washington State home. A record of evidence recovered
Speaker 1: during the apartment search was unsealed last month, revealing the
Speaker 1: seizure of fifteen items, including hairs, receipts, a computer tower,
Speaker 1: a disposable glove, and items with stains. But what significance,
Speaker 1: if any can actually be gleaned from the list. The
Speaker 1: Independent spoke to two experts, doctor Monty Miller, a former
Speaker 1: crime scene investigator and forensic expert for the Texas Department
Speaker 1: of Public Safety, and former FBI agent Jennifer Kofendaffer for
Speaker 1: their takes on each item. Included on the list of
Speaker 1: seizures was a possible animal hair strand. While mister Coburger
Speaker 1: is not believed to have a pet, one of the
Speaker 1: victims he is accused of killing, Gonsalves, had a dog
Speaker 1: that was at home at the time of the murders
Speaker 1: and was later found by police responding to the scene.
Speaker 1: And it's all going to depend on how those test
Speaker 1: results come back for that dog hare. If it comes
Speaker 1: back for the breed that Murphy is, then they have
Speaker 1: themselves a home run. If it comes back and it's
Speaker 1: not the same breed, well that means Brian Cooeberger was
Speaker 1: somewhere else and he picked up a dog hare while
Speaker 1: he was at that other location. Unfortunately, we're not going
Speaker 1: to know one way or the other until the trial.
Speaker 1: The possible animal hair, they'll try to connect that to
Speaker 1: the dog left at the scene. According to doctor Miller,
Speaker 1: if there's a root on that If there is any
Speaker 1: skin on that hair, they could do a DNA test
Speaker 1: with that dog. If it's just a hair that's been
Speaker 1: shed and there is no skin, they would still be
Speaker 1: able to do a microscopile comparison and exclude most dogs,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't be able to connect it necessarily to
Speaker 1: that dog. And if that's the case, well, it leaves
Speaker 1: a little bit of room for a reasonable doubt for
Speaker 1: Brian Koberger and his legal team, Right, that's all they're
Speaker 1: looking for. Remember, they don't have to prove that Brian
Speaker 1: Cooeberger is innocent. What they have to do is show
Speaker 1: enough reasonable doubt that a jury doesn't agree with the
Speaker 1: prosecution scenario and thinks that there's not enough there as
Speaker 1: far as evidence to convict Brian Koeberger. That's what they're
Speaker 1: gunning for. They're not looking for the jury to come
Speaker 1: back and say, oh, Brian Koberger is innocent, he didn't
Speaker 1: do any of this. What they're looking for is reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Ms Koffendaffer also explained that the suspect would have left
Speaker 1: behind evidence at the scene, but also taken evidence with
Speaker 1: them before leaving. She said she was surprised by how
Speaker 1: little hare was listed on the search warrant record. We
Speaker 1: also have to keep in mind that he had a
Speaker 1: lot of time to clean up his house before this
Speaker 1: raid wasted. Remember, he had what over a month or
Speaker 1: so to prepare things, get things cleaned up, tosses apartment,
Speaker 1: make sure he got rid of all the hairs that
Speaker 1: were possibly there, all the ones that he could get
Speaker 1: rid of. So there might have been a treasure trove
Speaker 1: of evidence at this apartment directly after these crimes. But
Speaker 1: when the police went there and they enacted this search warrant, well,
Speaker 1: they didn't come back with the whole treasure trove. However,
Speaker 1: we don't know what they have because we aren't privy
Speaker 1: to those test results. So the evidence that they pulled
Speaker 1: out of that house, it could be very significant or
Speaker 1: it could be a bunch of bup kiss. We will
Speaker 1: not know until we get to that trial. I would
Speaker 1: expect those items to have been transferred to the killer
Speaker 1: and when he took off his clothing, that to then
Speaker 1: transfer to other clothing and items. So I was surprised
Speaker 1: not to see more items and more hair, she said.
Speaker 1: Kaylee Gonsalavas and her dog Murphy, who was spared from
Speaker 1: the attack and later found unharmed at the scene. Doctor
Speaker 1: Miller explained how the hair is collected, indicated they were
Speaker 1: found separately. They may have collected eight hairs in a
Speaker 1: pillowcase and collected one separately because they found it in
Speaker 1: a different place, he said. And somebody when they collected
Speaker 1: it just wrote hair strand instead of hair. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: write things a little differently. The distinction between hair and
Speaker 1: hair strand was not necessarily meaningful. Miss kofen Daffer also
Speaker 1: said as there could have been more than one log
Speaker 1: keeper that preferred one wording over the other. Again all speculation.
Speaker 1: We don't know what the technician meant when they were
Speaker 1: writing that down. Maybe it has significance, maybe it doesn't.
Speaker 1: According to miss Kofendaffer and mister Miller, well in their experience,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean much. She also noted that the overall
Speaker 1: amount of findings at the Washington State apartment was rather underwhelming.
Speaker 1: I would want to point out that it's not really
Speaker 1: as interesting to me what is on the search warrant
Speaker 1: as what's not on the search warrant and what it
Speaker 1: won't return, she told The Independent. I just expected so
Speaker 1: much more information, so many more hairs, I expected fibers,
Speaker 1: I expected clothing to be taken. I had hoped for shoes. See,
Speaker 1: I didn't think any of that was going to be possible.
Speaker 1: And the reason, well, Brian Coberger took that long way
Speaker 1: home after he allegedly killed these kids. So it makes
Speaker 1: sense to me to think that Brian Coburger got rid
Speaker 1: of all of that evidence while on that trip home.
Speaker 1: So I never expected them to find much at the
Speaker 1: house as far as that kind of evidence, and I
Speaker 1: certainly have never expected them to find the murder weapon,
Speaker 1: especially once we learned that he took that long way
Speaker 1: home and he went through all of those desolate areas.
Speaker 1: He had plenty of time to get rid of that
Speaker 1: evidence or even start a fire if he wanted to
Speaker 1: burn those clothes. Speculation about a code defendant is debunked.
Speaker 1: Earlier this month, Brian Coberger's attorney, Ann Taylor, filed a
Speaker 1: discovery request in the case, asking the judge to order
Speaker 1: the prosecution to hand over all discovery in the case
Speaker 1: within fourteen days. Among the discovery requests were witness statements,
Speaker 1: digital media, and police reports about the case. It also
Speaker 1: included a request for information about a code defendant in
Speaker 1: the case statements of a code defendant, any written or
Speaker 1: recorded statements by a code defendant, and the substance of
Speaker 1: any relevant oral statement made by a code defendant, whether
Speaker 1: before or after arrest, in response to interrogation by any
Speaker 1: person known by the code defendant to be a peace
Speaker 1: officer or agent of the prosecuting attorney, or which are
Speaker 1: the otherwise relevant to the offense charged. The filing reads
Speaker 1: the requests prompted speculation of evidence suggesting that mister Coberger
Speaker 1: may have had an accomplice or that the defense could
Speaker 1: seek to argue that as part of their case. And
Speaker 1: when you first read the discovery it certainly reads like
Speaker 1: that you say to yourself, oh, man, could there be
Speaker 1: a defendant? But on further examination, it's just standard boilerplate
Speaker 1: language in most of these discovery requests, and the defense
Speaker 1: attorneys they're just trying to cover their ass right. They
Speaker 1: want to make sure that their client has the best
Speaker 1: chance possible to win the case, and if that means
Speaker 1: talking about code defendants or making sure that there aren't
Speaker 1: code defendants, then that's the kind of language you should
Speaker 1: expect in these kinds of filings. However, mister Levin explained
Speaker 1: that This is just part of the standard request for
Speaker 1: discovery in a case. There are just very standard requests
Speaker 1: as part of the defenses discovery request, he said, And
Speaker 1: like I said previously, I've talked to my lawyer as well,
Speaker 1: and he told me the same thing, very basic standard
Speaker 1: language for a contract like this or a filing with
Speaker 1: the court. You want to make sure that you have
Speaker 1: everything covered. Remember they're playing a game of chess, meaning
Speaker 1: the prosecutors and the defense attorneys. While ruling out other
Speaker 1: individuals as possible suspects will likely form part of the
Speaker 1: state's case against mister Coburger, he said that this does
Speaker 1: not indicate that there are other suspects. The probable cause
Speaker 1: afford David makes no mention of a code defendant, and
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials have previously insisted that they believe the
Speaker 1: suspect acted alone. The request making mention of a code
Speaker 1: defendant is also just one of eighteen discovery requests made
Speaker 1: in the court filing. I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: made much of that, mister Levin said of the discovery request,
Speaker 1: and I agree with him here. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: much going on as far as the code defendant. But
Speaker 1: like everything else, in this crazy ass case. I'm leaving
Speaker 1: a little bit of headroom just in case it evolves
Speaker 1: and goes a different way. We have to keep in
Speaker 1: mind that while we have seen what the prosecution has
Speaker 1: to offer so far, and it's strong, but we have
Speaker 1: to wait to see what the defense brings to the
Speaker 1: table as well, because we're only getting one side of
Speaker 1: the story as of now, and there's certainly areas where
Speaker 1: the defense can look to make some ground, But a
Speaker 1: code defendant, I don't think that they're gonna find any
Speaker 1: traction there, but I think it's important for the defense
Speaker 1: to at least try and establish that somebody else could
Speaker 1: have done this, and that's what they're going to try
Speaker 1: and do with a possible code defendant or if they
Speaker 1: go with this strategy. But whether it's this strategy or
Speaker 1: another one, you better believe that the goal is for
Speaker 1: them to have reasonable doubt and for them to make
Speaker 1: the jury think that somebody else besides Brian Koberger could
Speaker 1: have been responsible for these murders. The question is will
Speaker 1: the jury buy what they're selling? All Right, folks, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this one. All of the information
Speaker 1: that goes along with this episode can be found in
Speaker 1: the description box.