Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial.
Speaker 3: Parkway murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial
Parkway Murders Facebook group together with Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 1: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 2: Bill Thomas.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
Speaker 3: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 5: We are joined today by Kevin Fixler, professional reporter from
the idahos Statesman, here to talk to us a little
bit about the Idaho or murder case and the coverage
that his paper has done since the beginning.
Speaker 3: Kevin, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 5: We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 5: Start by talking to us about your professional credentials and
your work at the Idaho Statesmen.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 6: So, I'm one of our three investigative reporters as part
of our accountability team. We have about fifteen to seventeen reporters.
We have a newsroom of about twenty five. My background is,
like many of us, not quite linear. But after undergraduates,
which I studied journalism and American history, I meandered a
bit until I found my way to graduate school at
SESSE Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Speaker 2: Finished there. I was actually a freelance.
Speaker 6: Sports writer for many years before graduate school, and then
even a year or two after, and then I found
my way to my first newspaper, which was the Summit
Daily News in Frisco, Colorado in the Western Slope for
anybody who is listening and knows that area, but it's essentially.
Speaker 2: Breckenriche Ski town.
Speaker 6: So I worked there for about two years, and then
I moved on to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat newspaper,
where I got more than my fill of catastrophic wildfire
coverage and also survived COVID in California, so that was
an interesting experience. And then I made my way to
Boise on a whim. I was actually going to work
on a book and take a break from journalism, but
I couldn't quit it, or it couldn't quit me, I'm
not sure which. But in the midst of some freelance
work actually on the Capital Punishment here in Idaho, which
was my first foray into that, I started down a
path with the Idaho Statesman, and I've been with the
paper for just over four years now.
Speaker 3: So you're a little bit of a journalistic gypsy, as
it were.
Speaker 6: I guess you could say that. I know that historically,
and things have changed. Of course, in the industry, things
certainly have evolved, but I think it's not uncommon that,
maybe more on radio and TV, that people move from
markets and you start small and move up if things
go accordingly, or become an editor in a smaller place
or what have you. But yeah, that was my path,
which is maybe a little bit more traditional, but we
don't necessarily see that so much anymore.
Speaker 5: Obviously, the biggest story in Idaho since twenty twenty two
is the quadruple murder of Kaylee Maddie's Enna and Ethan
by Brian Coberger. So talk to us a little bit
about what happens in a newsroom when news that momentous
actually comes in, what how does the process start in reporting?
Speaker 6: This is an interesting story. I've told it before, but
I was out of town when this all broke. I'm
originally from Denver, and I got a text message from
my editor and he said, there's been four students were
found dead.
Speaker 2: We use the word killed.
Speaker 6: We really didn't know and there wasn't a lot of
information early in and the reason why this to the extent,
I was on vacation, and my editor felt like for
reaching out. I was the morning reporter for the next
day and I was traveling back and he.
Speaker 2: Said, this just happened.
Speaker 6: We're just getting word out of Moscow, which is six
hours north of Boise where we're based, so about three
hundred miles. And I'd never been to Moscow, probably at
that time even mispronounced it as Moscow. But I got
the word from my editor, and I again I drew
the short straw to some extent, and I was the
breaking news reporter, just filling in the next day, and
he said, let's hit this as hard as we can
with everything we can and learn all the details. And
so I was flying back thinking about this and the
reason why this is so momentous in our community, in
our state. Is that again, listeners may have different experiences,
particularly those may be in a place like California or
New York, but a quadruple homicide is entirely unheard of
in Idaho. It's now a state of about two million people.
We're still pretty small, but it's just it was completely
unheard of. And that was really the point my editor
wanted to register with me was, I know, you're not
from here, and I was still a year or not
quite two on the job, and he was emphasizing that
this is it's unprecedented basically for our state.
Speaker 2: And we ended up doing that research.
Speaker 6: Lake Talk County, which is where Moscow is located, hadn't
had a murder in seven years, and so it's just, yeah,
it's just that police department was completely overwhelmed and not
really designed for that. They're used to writeing MIP tickets
and you're probably checking the vehicle registration tags and next
thing you know, they're hopping on the biggest what became
i think the biggest case in the nation for an
extended period. So in terms of getting to it immediately,
we had to learn more. We weren't sure, there was
a lot of rumor about whether or not this was
a drug overdost or something like that. Those were rumors
early in, but you just don't hear about for student's dying.
And so we took the approach of an all hands
on deck once we started to learn more and passing
the torch from morning to evening and then signing for
the next day, and you're scrambling. It's certainly breaking news,
and you're competing with outlets at that time, probably just
in the state and then the region, but it quickly
grew as we're spread across the country about a very
mysterious and shocking incidents in Idaho of all places.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned that you're based in Poise, and that's
three hundred miles away. So how does the newspaper even
handle the initial logistics? Did you have a staff reporter
up that way or how's it work?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we are three hundred miles south. Idaho is
a massive state from north to south. It's about eight
hours north to the Canadian border, so even two hours
north of Moscow, and before we were deciding whether or
not to physically send somebody, that's quite a drive, I'll
tell you and we're making initial phone calls. You're trying
to reach the public information officer for the police department.
We were reaching out to the university. They were deeply involved. Again,
you're scrambling. The mayor of Moscow ended up steppingto the
mic several times early in and just trying to wrap
your head around this. And once again we started to
learn more details. Me having just come off my vacation trip,
I passed it along and we sent Actually we thought
what was going to be advantageous for us, because I
didn't know the community was We sent a colleague at mine,
Angela Palermo, who was fairly new into our newsroom, not
a new journalist by any means, but new to our newsroom,
and she had graduated from the University of Idaho in Moscow,
so had a great familiarity with the school, the community,
the city, and we felt that gave us our best shot.
And she basically ended up living up there for about
two or three months, and again, as we learned more
and more from the investigative side, where I'd play a
role for our newspaper across a number of subjects. I
went up there about two weeks later and started to
scrounge around and looked for different leads and new information
once the facts started to trickle in. So I ended
up over the course of before it moved. The case
was moved to Boise through a change venue that happened
in September last year. But I took six trips up
there and multiple day visits, and I also traveled to
Coberger's hometown in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, so that
was another trip I took as well. But you go
where the news take you and where do you feel
like you can deploy your resources and be a benefit
to your community and your readership.
Speaker 2: So that's what we did.
Speaker 3: Just from a logistics standpoint, Kevin, it seemed like there
were all of a sudden, there was this lot of
activity because this was a major story. What do you
do about like hotels or Airbnb? Would every motel room
for miles around be sold out with all the media
people and other folks heading into town.
Speaker 6: I think that was a pretty big concern for the
community of Moscow. It's not a huge place. City's twenty
five thousand people and the county is forty thousand, and
so I do know that some journalists were staying just
over the state line in Pullman, and there's obviously a
direct correlation and relationship between those two cities revolving around
this case, aside from the two sister college communities. But yeah,
when there was this groundswell of regional and national reporters,
i'll use your word flooding in Yeah, most.
Speaker 2: Hotel rooms were booked up.
Speaker 6: I traditionally when I travel, I try to stay in Airbnb,
and so I was able to grab those ahead of
court hearings and things like that. But yeah, I remember
it was a little difficult to get a room in
the first few weeks. And I think that's the part
why not only did it make sense, and I'm not
advocating one way or the other, but that was a
concern about whether or not the city of Moscow could
even handle if the trial did happen up there, And
so logistically speaking, it made a lot more sense for Boise.
That's where people fly into Idaho for the most part,
and for all these witnesses we were anticipating for a
trial that now never happens, but families coming down and
all that, and even the size of the courtroom, it
just made a lot of sense. That Boyse would have
handled that the capital city rather than it was tiny
place most people had never heard of before.
Speaker 5: So for anybody who has not worked in journalism, tell
us a little bit about the process of when you
actually get out of the newsroom and go to a
scene to report a story. Where are you going? Where
you going to the King Road residence? Are you going
to the police station, to the university, to the court?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Where are you going?
Speaker 5: And how much time are you spending on the ground
versus how much time like back in your airbnb writing
up your stories.
Speaker 2: Give us a little breakdown about that.
Speaker 6: Sure, when I went to travel up there, I would
split between either flying directly to the Pullman Moscow Airport,
which is located right there in Pullman, or I flew
into Spokane once and drove in for the purposes of
trying to meet with some sources. Also, that's that logistic
And I've also driven back and forth as well. And
it's a harry road one way or one lane each direction,
a lot of areas with no guardbrails, and in the
winter that's not ideal. That's outside of hope for you
in some regards. But there is no newsroom. Once you
are out on the ground and three hundred miles north.
But so much is done anymore where we have virtual
meetings and we're on zoom right now. That's how a
lot gets done. But in terms of what I was
doing on the ground, yes, I spent more time than
I can even think over, maybe even want to remember,
in front of that home and meeting with there's a
couple of neighboring apartment complexes, just door knocking, that sort
of thing. I did spend time at the police station,
meeting with the public information officers for the police department
and actually for the incident too.
Speaker 2: There was a.
Speaker 6: Basically a crisis level public information officer who was shared
from Idaho State Police and really had to help the
small department manage the level of media and public inquiry
about this case. It was I've used the word term overwhelming,
but I'm certain it was.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sometime at the police station, which is not that
far from the crime scene which that home got knocked
down in December of twenty three. But yeah, so time
there and just moving around the community at Moscow has
a smaller downtown area and I was just talking with
regular folks too, man on the street, kind of stuff
where I'd go to the local coffee shop and I'd
overhear somebody talking about it, or I want to ask
the barista kind of the impact on the community, those
sorts of things you're moving around about the community, And yeah,
I was writing from the airbnb and filing stories and
working through edits and on the phone with my editors
and making sure we're all buttoned up and getting.
Speaker 2: Those stories out as soon as we could.
Speaker 6: So that's a, I guess the short of it in
terms of how we once we're on a scene, trying
to develop leads and sourcing and all that, and then
you're compiling it all and shipping it off and getting
it online.
Speaker 3: So who's coordinating the assignments is You're obviously an experienced
newspaper reporter. You've done a lot of writing for a
number of different papers around the country. You don't probably
need a lot of direction, but it's got to be
a little bit of a traffic jam. One of the
things that Kristin and I noticed is that, in addition
to your byline, which we've read numerous times, we've seen
a number of other reporters who also covered the story.
Who coordinates the coverage, so that if yours is the
day to do the man in the street interviews or
go talk to the baristas, and somebody else is going
to be, let's say, at Moscow PD, who is coordinating
those schedules and handing out the assignment.
Speaker 6: We work in a pretty modern newsroom, and so it's
more of a two way street. I know people are
probably familiar with movies where you've got some tough as
nails editors saying give me this by five o'clock for
that kind of thing, and that's not really you know
that there are nesom that's newsrooms that certainly still work
like that, but we have pretty thoughtful editors. It's a
more holistic approach, and so while we might get assignments
in the traditional sense, it's often hey see what you
can figure out. We're thinking, we want to talk to
the police, We're looking for answers to these types of questions.
It's more direction like that, and then I might go
sift around and if I get some great interview with
a neighbor who happened to hear something which actually is
something that happened, I'm going back to my editors and saying, hey,
I spoke to this neighbor.
Speaker 2: He says he heard this. He typically see. He was
actually up at the time.
Speaker 6: That police believed this happened, and they're like, great, put
this together, and you think you can have it to
us by three whatever, And we're just trying to I
guess triage to some extent. You obviously have priorities and
things like that. But I can remember when I was
up in Moscow and my colleague Angela was there too.
We either pair up on something, or she might go
to the police station or some makeshift press conference and
I might be on the other side of town writing
up the story or waiting for her to phone in
some information to me so I can add it to
the piece. It's highly collaborative, it's very self directed, and it's,
like I said, very holistic in approach on how we
do that here at the Idaho Statesman.
Speaker 5: You know, three years is a long time to be
covering a story, especially a story that is it's very
much at the heart of this community and it is
very emotionally charged and upsetting. Were there ever times when
you had difficulty kind of shutting off your emotions about
it and just reporting How personal did this become for
you after three years of doing this kind of end
up reporting.
Speaker 2: It's challenging work. Certainly.
Speaker 6: I think I'm one of these people who probably buries
myself in work when there's personal challenges or based around
the content or subject matter. I don't recall specifically having
any issues getting stories out. I know, what's this headliner
of a storyline for students.
Speaker 2: Stab to death?
Speaker 6: And I think there's some distance there because you've got
to put your hard head on and go to work
to some extent. And it's not to say we become
desensitized to these things, but that's the job and it's
not the same as being a first responder, but I
can feel that way sometimes, and there is trauma that
you take in and there's a lot more I think
talk about that sort of thing in journalism anymore, to
be aware. And even I had a conversation after the
sentencing hearing last week with the former police chief who
came down for that hearing, and we were talking about
we had this moment together, and he had said, you've
been on this for almost three years. Of course this
is going to feel personal, and we're also going to
feel this trauma from these various communities, whether it was
Moscow or Pullman, or, like I said, the Pocono Mountains.
When I went out to Coburger's in the community where
I grew up. You could sense it there too, when
it washed over them, and it just the shock that
this incident from across the country had shown up to
their doorstep. But I don't recall anything as far as
an inability to put my fingers on the keys or
something like that. I will say that in more recent weeks,
and maybe in the last month, as it became very real,
as we were getting much closer to the reality of
a trial and emotions running high, whether it was the
families of the victims or there were two roommates who
survived this incident who were not physically attacked. Seeing that
up close and personal, including at the sentencing hearing, was
just brutal and not something I was really prepared for.
But I'd say, besides that, it was another day at work.
But yeah, that has been more challenging. And another example
I would give you is that the plea hearing, I
by chance was seated right behind Brian Coberger's parents and
just crushing to watch them go through.
Speaker 3: Then oh, well, could you hear them if they talked
back and forth.
Speaker 6: They were in the first row and kind of seated
directly to his right. Just that corpse setup is unique.
But they may have whispered a few things to each other.
They were in the first row, I think I was
maybe in the second row and over to the left.
I think was how that worked out. I couldn't hear.
Speaker 3: Them, but you could see them pretty clearly, yes, And
my god, what must they be going through?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 6: It was just they didn't have to say a word.
I didn't have to hear anything they said. You could
just see. It was utter devastation.
Speaker 3: So in the room from the Coburger family, that was
his mother, father, and sister as well.
Speaker 2: So he has two older sisters.
Speaker 6: The father not attend sentencing instead it was the mother again,
and then one of his sisters attended as well. And
I was not in the physically in the courtroom for
the sentencing hearing, which was my colleague Alex Brizzy, ar
course reporter, because seceeding was very tight, but she described
something very similar that they were just broken up and
sobbing at points, a very charged room and incredibly emotional
and say what you will, obviously about the defendant who
has pleaded guilty to these terrific murders. He still has family,
and they showed up for him. And I don't want
to say they faced the music as well, but I
think they in their support of him.
Speaker 2: Just as a person and as a.
Speaker 6: Loved one of theirs, they faced a significant brunt of
those emotions too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked about this on Mind over Murder last week.
I was shocked at how much online vitriol I saw
aimed at his family, and I said to Kristin, it's
one thing to be angry, furious, even wished death upon
and someone like Brian Coberger, who's at this point admitted
his involvement in this horrible quadruple murder. I just don't
get the focus on his family. For example, I don't
see how you can blame his parents, or his sisters,
or anyone from the Coburger clan for what this man
has done. They're not responsible for any of this stuff.
Did you get a sense of anger being directed towards
the family or did people mostly leave them alone?
Speaker 6: I think from the outside community, certainly the victims' family
members did not blame the Coburgers, and I don't think
there was correspondence or any level of communication those directions
the Coburgers very initially issued. The family issued a statement
through the Public Defender in Pennsylvania, and they asked for
privacy in this incredibly difficult time. They shared their their
deep concerns and feelings for the victim's families, not knowing
if their son was involved or not. But he was
obviously arrested and accused and subsequently charged and has now
admitted that it was him, But at the time they
didn't know. They were just confused. Their home had been
rated by the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police at
one point thirty in the morning, and unbeknownst to them,
they were brought into the national spotlight over this too.
So I think largely they were left alone. I do
know that there was some paparazzi type media outlets that
would end up in their gated community and snap photos
whenever they could, which that's not the type of journalism,
if you can call that journalism, It's not the type
of journalism we're involved or invested in. We in fact
go the other way and try to be very respectful
about these things. But I think again early in from
the public standpoint, there were a lot of questions about
what they may know or what thoughts they might have
had about whether or not they're or brothers was capable
of this, and so I think that was more of
the question. But yeah, the vitriol is a good word.
Speaker 2: I think we.
Speaker 6: See anonymous accounts on Twitter or x I guess now
and Facebook and people having so many questions and their suspicions.
They must have known, right he drove back with his
father across the country in the vehicle that he had
driven to the home, and they must have talked about
that over the four day trip, or how could they
not know because of his bizarre behavior at home where
he's separating his trash and wearing gloves. They must have
known that he was involved. And I think we've learned
quite the contrary. They had no idea and are emotionally devastated,
as I mentioned, having seen them.
Speaker 2: In the courtroom.
Speaker 5: I want to branch off, just real briefly to something
that you just mentioned. You were talking a little bit
about this concept of the paparazzi, which of course we're
all very familiar with, but also in the last couple
of years, there have been these sort of new types
of journalists, and I'm just going to do air quotes
around them because I'm not sure how to apply that term.
But you've got the rise of true crime influencers who
have tiktoks and YouTube channels and things like that. You also,
of course have podcasters like us, but I don't think
we take up that much space. A lot of these
influencers will sometimes come to crime scenes to report on
these crimes. Were there ever times when you found yourself
or your colleagues competing with them for attention or for space?
Tell us how you feel about this new breed of
true crime journalism that has arisen over the last couple
of years.
Speaker 3: When we use the term influencer, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 6: Know that they necessarily consider themselves journalists. And that's this
idea that if everybody's a journalist, nobody's a journalist.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think we used to refer to people like this
as bloggers, but that's all motives maybe now anyway, I'm
dating myself a little bit, but yeah, even to the
extent that's the judge down here in Boise was not
going to make decisions about who was a journalist and
who was not, and so they reserved no seats. There
was actually one toward the end that they committed to
a establish news outlet out of North Idaho. They were
going to allow one guaranteed seat and no others. They
just treated everybody from the public as the public, and
so it was a scramble to get in, including for
sentencing and the plea hearing.
Speaker 3: So even for long time legitimate news sources like the
Idaho Statesman, there were no reserved seats.
Speaker 6: No, not even for the Associated Press, a bureau chief
here in Boise. That was just how they chose to
go about it. And for trial, they were planning to
do a lottery systems like Ticketmaster.
Speaker 2: You got to get on it at noon each day
and click the.
Speaker 6: Button and hope you get the email to guarantee your
seat for the next day. But that never went into effect,
and so it became first come, first served, and it
was I spent part of an overnight ahead of the
sensing hearing because so many true crime folks, just people
who follow this and want to show up as if
it's a sporting event, and from across the country, they
flew in and waited in line overnight, and my colleagues
and I traded shifts so that we could ensure we
were able to secure one seat, and we weren't clear
how many seats.
Speaker 2: There would even be.
Speaker 6: It is the largest courtroom at the courthouse down here
in Boise, but we didn't know how many there would
even be available to the public because we weren't sure
how many members of the victim's families were going to
be there. It certainly a small number of seats. I
want to say, maybe it was twenty five or maybe
up to thirty five or how many got in. And
media is here from across the country, and those people saying,
what do you mean we can't get in? You know,
what do you mean even at four a m. If
we show up, we don't have a not a guaranteed seat,
but the likelihood we would get in, and so many
people got to shut out. Yeah, in terms of the
I don't know the blogger, I'll just call them it
is rising the TikTokers. One actually is being sued by
a University of Idaho professor over the fact that she
claimed that she was involved in the incident, and that's
actually ongoing. Is a federal case, wow, a defamation case,
and she was a some sort of fortune teller and
claimed that through her tarot readings she knew that this
woman was responsible. And so there's an ongoing defamation case
here in Idaho over that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's I think.
Speaker 6: It probably is a slow not that slow, but a
winnowing a way of people understanding legitimate sources of information.
That's how I think rumor was everywhere in this case.
Part of that was that police kept things close to
the best and they weren't answering a lot of questions,
so then rumors developed.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they begin to fill the space.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but this case I think is particularly unique in
that way. We really saw how social media can work
both directions in terms of the spreading of just outright falsehoods,
and a lot of people's names were sullied. And before
they caught Koberger, there were a lot of rumors about
who might be responsible, and all the internet sleuths were
looking at videos and different things like that, who's that
guy in the hoodie? And I don't like the way
that guy looked at them? What's he got going on?
False accusations? Ultimately that people's names were floated.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 6: I think that's what's lost with these types of things
is the vetting. It doesn't mean that these are I
don't carry some sort of identification card or certificate that
I'm an established journalist or something. But there is a
practice and it is a profession, and there are ethics involved,
and all that goes out the window as far as
I've seen, and with people who claim to either be
journalists or want to be out on the ground and
make sure they're videotaping the police at the scene and
what are they doing and riling people up about something
that's not reality.
Speaker 3: Was there ever a time during this case where social
media was helpful to you as opposed to a hindrance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: I was tracking this case very closely, and in fact
many other people were too. There's a Facebook group that
developed specific to the case, and I would get ideas
from that. People would post something I hadn't considered yet,
so it certainly was a resource.
Speaker 2: In many ways.
Speaker 6: I'm vetting things, obviously, but there would be some new
document that somebody stumbled across because there were people committing
their lives to this case in many ways, and so
it's a crowdsource concept that was pretty useful. But I
could see what was out there, or I would even
see competitors' news stories that would get posted, and I
would say, oh, gosh, I got to jump on that,
or I've got something on that too, or I need
to make a phone call to check that, and we
either write a story that dispels whatever got published by
somewhere like People magazine, and they had a lot of
stories with rumors really and many things that were proven
to not be true. But in another example, we were
the first news outlet to publish a story about a
k bar knife with something specific that police were searching for.
And our opinion editor actually was just tracking Twitter again
acts I guess it was Twitter then, and somebody had
posted in a comments section on a story that had
gone out from the Idaho States and Twitter handle and
it said, hey, you guys should check this out. I
saw police in Moscow visiting these various retail stores.
Speaker 2: I wonder what they're looking for.
Speaker 6: Just with that little piece of information, I relaid that
up to Angela Parlanermo, who was up there are boots
on the ground at that time, and I said, hey,
go check out this hard store or sporting goods store
or whatever it was, and go see what police were
asking them about. And sure enough she went in. She
spoke to the general manager and he explained, they asked
me about this specific brand of knife to sell, right
a k bar combat knife, and we don't sell it,
but I have to know a lot about him, and
so he told her all about Oh yeah, they had
all these questions for us, and they came back more
than once to ask about and we were the first
to publish the story that identified the police were looking
for this specific type of knife. We later learned it's
because the leather sheath for this fixed played knife was
left at the crime scene and police didn't want to
talk about it then, but it was absolutely factual, and
we were the first publication in the country to have
any of that information out.
Speaker 3: How does law enforcement respond when a major newspaper like
the Idaho Statesman runs a story like that, which is
maybe you're getting out in front of the story. How
do they respond?
Speaker 6: I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist here. In fact, Angela,
that was the first. So when we reported that story,
it was right before the very first press conference that
they were going to hold, and that was three and
a half days into this incident, which the police chief
even to this day will tell you he regrets that
he didn't hold one sooner and he took a ton
of heat over it. Yeah, but and he opened that
the press conference saying, I probably should have been here
a day ago, but I'm here now. And that was
his answer. But I've talked to him several times. He's
a real good guy and he's That was one of
my first missteps, and I've learned from it, and that
was a mistake. But the conspiracy theorist in me believes
that they intentionally shut my colleague out of that press
conference initially really because we had just reported the story
and she would have been the one to ask, hey,
we were around the corner and this general manager, and
it never got asked because she was told that it
was all full and we could even see on the
live stream that there were open seats and.
Speaker 3: Wow, so she got the straight arm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's a conspiracy.
Speaker 6: They did eventually let her in, but we had to
contact the university to say they're not letting us in.
This is unbelievable, and she got in but then didn't
get an opportunity.
Speaker 2: To ask a question.
Speaker 6: But I think we're generally, universally, I don't think law
enforcement was thrilled that we had that information. And when
we went back to them later on to ask, hey,
you didn't want to respond specifically to the idea that
it was a k bar and that you were sending
your officers to these various businesses locally to see if
they'd sold this particular type of weapon. And even then
I was told by the public information officer, but we
don't know that it was specific to that brand, and
we were asking about a group of knives, and now
we all.
Speaker 3: Know that's that was not true because it was totally untrue.
The cover which we've seen, the sheath, we've seen pictures
of it's very clearly for a specific kind of knife.
But they didn't want to admit any of that at
that point.
Speaker 2: No, even that was.
Speaker 6: Mid December, I think by the time I had that conversation,
so that would have been even a month later, and
they didn't want to acknowledge that they were looking at
a specific brand, but we knew it was a I
think the corner put out information it was a large
fixed blade knife, but I don't think they were too
committed to the brand at that time. And then all
of that came out when the probable cause affidavit for
Koberger's arrest was released in early January, and of course
we knew we had nailed it.
Speaker 3: Speaking of that document, a number of people, ourselves included,
were aware of the fact that they were using investigative
genetic penealogy, and we knew the people that behind the
scenes that were doing the work. Were you struck by
the fact that the probable cause document did not contain
any reference to the fact that they were using investigative
genetic genealogy.
Speaker 6: I should have been calling you guys, because it sounds
like you had the sourcing we did.
Speaker 5: We did.
Speaker 3: We did not say anything, probably we.
Speaker 5: Didn't say anything about it on the POD, but we
had it quite in advance.
Speaker 2: Was this off from the UF, Yes, it was.
Speaker 3: Yes, They've done a lot of work with us, and
so we knew a lot about what was going on
going on inside certain aspects of the investigation.
Speaker 6: Sure, it was beyond rumor that this had happened, and
if they were using this advanced technique or technology.
Speaker 2: Whatever you want to consider it.
Speaker 6: And Slate was actually the first one to put a
story out about this, this fight. I remember that, yeah, yeah,
I'm failing to recall the writer's name, but it was
a beautiful piece and it was like, dang, like how
did they get this? New York Times wrote a piece
to my friend Mike Baker, who we went toe to
toe over the course of all this. He's an amazing reporter,
and he had some reference to it, I think early
in as well.
Speaker 2: But we just couldn't get it.
Speaker 6: We couldn't verify it, and sure we could cite news
outlets or whatever, but we just we couldn't get it.
I couldn't figure out a way into the FBI. I
just don't have anonymous FBI sourcing an offer wasn't talking
and their name didn't even float out too early into it,
and then it was still months. It was six or
seven months, if I'm recalling correctly. Before the prosecution during
the legal proceedings, acknowledged that this was the initial way
in which law enforcement landed on them, and this of
course set off this huge constitutional question and govern all
this very closely.
Speaker 2: Is this legitimate?
Speaker 6: And Edberger's defense team made a lot of hay out
of it, but it eventually was thrown out as being
a constitutional rights issue, But it didn't mean they weren't
going to try so in terms of not having been
in the problem cause, Affid David, it was confusing. I
came to learn over the course of my reporting that
they're putting everything.
Speaker 2: They have into a people content.
Speaker 3: It's not a full laundry list of everything they've worked on.
Speaker 6: They're putting what they need to in order to justify
the arrest, and that was understood. I think not putting
it in there is it disingenuous? I don't know, but
I think once you knew that it was absent from it,
you could read the document and better understand. But it
was a little bit of a leap logically to understand
how they went from hey, we have this vehicle to
suddenly we've got the phone, to suddenly we've got these
other elements and the DNA connection.
Speaker 2: But it was like something's missing here. Yes, they knew
it was I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 6: Once you knew it was absent, you knew exactly how
this all this all came down. But again it wasn't
for seven months later as the defense sought all these
records through discovery through the FBI and offer him and
so forth through the state, but we had no confirmation
until that finally came out. And then so the problem
cause EFFI dated was maybe a little confusing, but it
didn't rattle me at the time, but certainly it was
like the absence of a key detail is in there,
and it was important that I think the prosecution acknowledge
eventually that there was the initial way that they had
heard his name, and then they reverse engineered the investigation
to figure out where he was and where.
Speaker 2: His car was, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Even now in the past two weeks, I think and
I think this the skipping of certain key steps in
the probable cause document to this day I think creates
confusion because there were all of these logical leaps involved
with the We identified the car and we saw the
white Hyundai, and then it was the wrong year. But
they were glossing over key, really essential developments that had
taken place. In my opinion, and Offroms never confirmed this,
but I probably could get them to say it now.
I think it was DNA first car second. But even
to this day I see reporting not with your name
on it that it seems to indicate that the Hyundai Lantra,
the white car which showed up in various videos shot
around town. That that's key. I actually think they already
knew who he was before they started looking at the car,
but I think that it there there was a lot
of confusion, which remains part of the mix to this day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the way that worked, Washington State University campus police
went and looked at all the vehicles that were permitted
by the university, and his happened to be one of them,
and so he was thrown onto a list that would
have been reviewed again later. So there was one one
officer who was looking at this in a computer. There
was one officer separately and I think unaffiliated with what
that officer had done the first one. The second one
was just moving around campus for student parking permits and
also came across that vehicle. What's interesting is that Moscow
police had initially issued a be on the lookout at
Bolo for a white Hondai Lantra years twenty eleven to
twenty thirteen Brian Koberger's cars at twenty fifteen, and Moscow
police never and what they asked for were any tips,
just send them in. We want to look at all
these vehicles were going through vehicle registration in three or
four different states and there were tens of thousands of
these vehicles are pretty common vehicle, which, again from a
antop seller, yeah, from the aspect of Brian Coberger's mind,
is one of the chances they're gonna be able to
pick this one. I'm sure that's people think he was
such a fool because he drove his own vehicle, and
I hear you, but it was a pretty common vehicle.
So anyway, Coberger does end up on some sort of list.
But the Washington the Poland police chief who now works
for Washington State University in the same role he had
mentioned that they had noticed this vehicle and it didn't
get submitted to Moscow because it was outside of the
year range that they had requested. So even talking with
former Moscow Police Chief James Frye, I said, you never
to the public corrected that date and the FBI analysts
did determine that the vehicle models were similar between eleven
and sixteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it didn't change very much. It's just changed a
little tail lights and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 6: Very minor, and so they made a revision later on internally,
but they never actually comm communicated that to the public.
And so the fact that his ended up being a
twenty fifteen, the defense pointed that out. He doesn't even
drive the very vehicle that law enforcement initially thought it was,
but they had revised that date range, but they just
never told the public.
Speaker 2: So I think that's where you.
Speaker 6: Get some of the vehicle misunderstandings as far as what
they quote unquote found first, but absolutely not. It definitely
was confirmed later on by the prosecution that without the
use of IgG and the quote unquote tip that the
FBI sent to local and state law enforcement, they didn't
have his name. They weren't looking at him, and they
didn't have that name until December nineteenth. And this also
just very quickly, this created a lot of conspiracy theories
about the FBI tracking him across the country as he
drove from Pulman to ok the Mountains with his dad,
and they were saying he got stopped twice within a
ten minute window in Indiana.
Speaker 2: What are the chances?
Speaker 6: I followed that story and tried to dispel that rumor repeatedly.
The FBI told me and they were under a gaggler.
They said, we're going to speak to this because we
need to dispel this rumor. We had no idea who
he was. We absolutely were not tracking him. Local law
enforcement wouldn't let him leave town if they knew who
he was at that time. I've heard the investigator say that.
And so they weren't not familiar with him until December
nineteenth because of in part that work done by Authoram
and then the FBI on the IgG and then that's
when they started surveilling him not long after in Pennsylvania.
But they had no idea his name at that time,
and so that's a bunch of whoy. It was a
drug interdiction stop back to back, and they were just
checking on who he was because he had an out
of sight plate estate plate and that was why.
Speaker 2: But seeing people who believe it.
Speaker 3: It did really strange at the time, especially the two
traffic stops minutes apart. You started to think to yourself,
could this be deliberate? Are they hassling him or are
they letting him know that he's on their radar or
what might it be? And it really does sound like
it could be a coincidence.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was and I think Bill Thompson, the prosecutor, actually,
in an interview with The New York Times last week,
he reiterated that it was the phrase he used was
totally e coincidental.
Speaker 3: Talk about the plea deal and the sentencing. That all
seemed to us to happen very fast. You, I think,
along with a lot of other people, were preparing for
a trial and then all of a sudden, we get
this plea deal. Did that come as a surprise one percent?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I have gotten to know a lot of the sort
of national journalists who have been covering this case as
a result of this, So that's been interesting. They're coming
to my home state and we interact, and I've got
to know these people. And Brian Netton, who works for
News Nation, was the first to release the information. He
posted on Twitter that a plea deal had been struck
and he had good sourcing that we didn't and we
had to scramble.
Speaker 2: And this is.
Speaker 6: A it brings me full circle to some extent. But
I happen to be in Denver trying to travel for
vacation as we were prepping for this trial and what
we expected to be fourteen hour days for three months
and I started getting text messages there's been a plea deal.
Speaker 2: There's been a plea deal.
Speaker 6: Actually had a conversation with Briantt and we were texting
just in the days.
Speaker 2: Before that, and he said, I'm starting to get this feeling.
Speaker 6: And he covers these big national crime cases and he said,
I just have a feeling something's coming. And I'm like,
you're crazy. Is there no way what plea deal could
they possibly strike? Why would he admit to this stuff.
He's been fighting this for two and a half years.
And the death penalty, whatever your perspective is on at
each and every person on that. So that ended up
being the chip that they were able to spend in
order to move the ball forward. To mix some analogies.
But yeah, we really had no idea about this. And
so I'm back in Denver and I'm getting all these
text messages and I immediately called my editor and I said,
I think this has happened. I think we have to
get on this. And there was no confirmation. There's a
gag order in place. It's not like you can call
the prosecutor or the defense and say, hey, what's the deal.
And so my colleague Alex Brizzy was able to get
one of the parents and one of the victims on
the phone, and they actually on the phone were opening
their email and realizing that this had been sent to them.
Oh okay, but the prosecution had sent them a letter
informing them that this had been done.
Speaker 3: And they hadn't even looked at that email yet.
Speaker 2: Wow, they had not.
Speaker 6: They had sat at a meeting I think in the
days prior, understanding that this was the direction that it
appeared that it would be going. How would you feel
about that? Basically, they were pulling the room to some extent,
but parent had not yet actually looked at their email
to see this. And then they read it to my
colleague and sent a copy of it to us so
we could verify, and that was what we needed in
order to move forward. And I think we were the
fourth to publish a story about it, but I know
we were in the early group to receive one of
these letters to confirm it. And then the hearing was
scheduled just two days later, and before I knew it,
I was already scheduled to travel back. But I'm lucky
I had my flight already booked and I'm handling breaking
news I scramble to get this huge piece of information out,
and then it was like I'm back in Boise tomorrow
and the hearings on Wednesday, and it was a whirlwind.
And suddenly you're sitting next to Brian Coberger's parents and
watching this whole thing unfold. It was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 5: I know that the big quest that was on everybody's
mind prior to the sentencing is he going to allocute?
Were you? I think everybody was hoping for it, and
we knew that ultimately that was not the outcome. Judge
Hipler said something that I thought was really very insightful,
and I liked that he said it. He said that
the more that we ask the why, the more agency
that we give him. But I still think that there
are plenty of people who wanted to know. Were you
hoping that Bran Coberger was going to allocute on the stand?
And I don't know what would your response have been
if he actually got up there and sang like the
proverbial canary.
Speaker 2: Certainly, there are so.
Speaker 6: Many un answered questions in this case, and the only
person who knows that the answer is just Bran Kober
and whether or not he will ever talk or he's
a pretty educated person. I've never spoken to him directly, obviously,
but maybe he'll write a book one day that's definitely
part of the theory, or he'll work with as former
professor doctor Katherine Ramsland, a well known forensic psychologist. Yeah,
maybe there's been talking and she's even said I want
to study him if he would permit.
Speaker 2: So maybe we'll see something like that's come to fruition.
Speaker 6: My girlfriend is an attorney and knows the legal process
pretty well, and she said there's no way.
Speaker 2: There's just no way he's going to do it.
Speaker 6: I think there were a lot of questions about whether
or not it could be required, and I think Judge
Hitler spoke specifically to that. He did there's no ability
for me to require this, and even President Trump weighed
in but didn't seem to understand that life in prisons
is not great, so the death penalty isn't good either,
but he should be required if he's going to broke
her this deal to have to give this information up.
But Prosecutor Bill Thompson felt the same way in defending
his decision that who would even believe this guy? At
that point, we're all at the end of a yo
yo and Brian Koberger is in control, and I think
they wanted to remove a belief that we were all
waiting on pins and needles for him to say something.
Speaker 2: So I did not anticipate him saying anything.
Speaker 6: I think he I respectfully decline, was what a way
to close your own chapter. But no, I didn't anticipated
he would say anything. I was told what could he gain.
I know that he was sentenced to the max and
that was always almost certainly going to be where Judge
Hipler went with his sentence, and he was a little
boxed in on what he could or couldn't do in
terms of sentencing for first degree murder in the state
and based on the agreed upon elements of the deal.
But I did not anticipate he would speak, and it's
just not been his style. He didn't. He stood silent,
so to speak, when when he was asked inter a.
Speaker 3: Plea up in Marscow initially, which was very striking, he
didn't even talk.
Speaker 6: That the only things I've ever heard Brian Koberger say audibly,
and he would whisper back and forth with his attorneys
from time to time, but absolutely was one word I remember,
and that was when he was asked if he wanted
to waive his speedy trial now, he didn't say yes,
he said absolutely, and I thought that was very bizarre.
And then obviously when he answered affirmatively about the murders,
and also when he entered his plea of guilty for
each of those, We've not really publicly heard his voice
outside of some of the things from prior recordings like
his early days in his attempt to start a rap career, which.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 6: People following the case know what I'm referencing, but yeah,
he recorded a rap song one time when he was
a kid or something. So yeah, we really have not
heard much in the way of his voice, and I
did not anticipate it for the hearing, even though we
all wanted it.
Speaker 5: So the other unanswered questions that you had talked about,
in addition to why did he do it, was who
exactly was on his radar? Like which victim was he
out to get? And I note that has not been established.
The Moscow Pities said they have not been able to
find any link between him and the other victims. Was
there any sort of rumor or word on the street
that you heard in all your reporting about how he
might have known them, or how he might have met them,
or has that still been a consistently unanswered question.
Speaker 6: You'll wing, if there even is one between Coburger and
the four victims has never been established. And there was
a press conference and a Q and a session immediately
following sentencing, and one of the lead detectives described exactly
that we all want a motive, we all want an
understanding of how they cross paths and all these things,
but it's important as a police narrative and part of
prosecutions and explaining to juries how this could have happened
and why this person was responsible.
Speaker 2: He's play.
Speaker 6: We all look for those sorts of things, but we
just have not been able to come across it. There's
no social media connection and all these rumors that came
out and none of that's true. There is a new
book from James Patterson and Vicky Ward that's funny.
Speaker 3: I saw it in a bookstore today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: In order to basically shoehorn a theory that's out there
into the book, they did something pretty creative. They spoke
to one of the close friends of some of the
victims and she was actually one of the first people
to arrive at the home on the call of one
of the surviving roommates, and she didn't see the bodies,
but her boyfriend did, and she also spoke. She gave
a victim impact statement on behalf of the other roommate
at the the sensing hearing. In the book, there's a
short chapter about how she's had a dream that Brian
Koberger met Madison Mogan at the Mad Greek restaurant where
Maddie and Ja where Maddie and Xana worked, and lead
detective was asked that exact question and he said.
Speaker 2: We don't believe that to be true. We don't.
Speaker 6: And again, this was like this dream phase that they
include in the book in order to hit that and
be responsible to some extent as journalists, even though I
questioned the use of that. But that's neither here nor there.
But dreams are not facts. Let's just make sure everybody
on the podcast knows that. But no, but the investigator
did say, we can't definitively say that he never aided
the Mad Greek restaurant, which wasn't one of the few
places that had vegan options in Coberger is known as
a vegan, so you know that. But that also makes
the presumption that Madison Mogan was the target. What I
have learned, however, is in speaking with Prosecutor Bill Thompson
now that the gaggler has dropped.
Speaker 2: I just spoke to him on Monday.
Speaker 6: That's Wednesday or Thursday today, losing track, but I just
spoke with him and he told me that his personal belief.
He also shared this with ABC, so I'm not breaking
news here, but he said that it is his personal
belief that Madison Mogan or Kaylee Consolves was Coberger's target.
And the basis for that for investigators is that they
believe Coberger immediately went upstairs to the third floor.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 6: Steve Cansolve is the father of Kaylee Cansolves. He's been
in a lot of news and used his platform.
Speaker 2: He has long said that.
Speaker 6: He believed that the girls upstairs were the target for
the same reason that he didn't need to go upstairs first.
That was his point. So that would suggest what the
intent was. But even today, Bill Thompson isn't clear on
which young woman, and they still don't even know the
order of the victims.
Speaker 2: They again, they have some theories.
Speaker 6: They have pretty good idea based on timing and so forth,
but they don't even really know the order. Another one
of these mysteries tied to this case that may never
be known.
Speaker 5: Well, Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there that night,
So I'm wondering if it was. I feel like by
process of elimination, it would have to be Maddie.
Speaker 6: And that's again good context clues and christ and you're
obviously following the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had already moved out.
Speaker 6: Kaylee and the three young women are from North Idaho,
and so she drove about an hour down for the
last football game, the last home football game the Vandals there.
Speaker 2: And she had also bought a range Rover that she
was showing off.
Speaker 3: She wanted to show a new car.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so she was, and it was a big party weekend,
and she wanted to basically say goodbye to her friends
because she was leaving for a job in Austin, Texas
was the intent. And so she was graduating at the
semester mark so early. And yeah, she wasn't even supposed
to be there. But there's lots of talk about why
the home was targeted. Perhaps and even investigator said it
that post sentencing press conference that it could have been
just a random choice that night to that extent that
it could have been a hiding and plain sight concept
that a lot.
Speaker 2: Of foot traffic in that area.
Speaker 6: It's like Greek wrote runoff and the juniors and seniors
live in that little neighborhood, and he may have just
a crime of opportunity, or he may have been stocked
the victims or stalking the house.
Speaker 2: We really don't know a lot of presumptions and phone pings.
Speaker 6: And different things like that, but in terms of the
rationale or the reason, if we can think.
Speaker 2: Of it that way, we really don't know. We're at
fifty six minutes, believe it or not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Kevin, one last question, now that the case has
been adjudicated, to talk to us a little bit about
how you feel it has changed the community, if not
the whole entire state. Obviously, this has took place in
two communities Moscow, Did I say that right?
Speaker 3: Moscow, Musco, Musco.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it took place in two communities, Musco and Boise,
and it's obviously had wide ranging media coverage. How do
you feel this case has just affected everybody in and
around Idaho.
Speaker 6: You couldn't really go anywhere without this coming up, and
maybe that's my unique experience because I'm so involved in
the case, and so if you meet people casually at
a party, everybody wants to know what you do obviously,
and then oh, do you track any interesting cases?
Speaker 2: I said, probably the one you're really following. Yeah.
Speaker 6: In terms of impact, gosh, look, the President weighed in
on this. Our governor issued a statement immediately following. Everybody
has connections to the University of Idaho in this state,
whether it's they attended it themselves or family, or there's
even that's the only school with a law school in
our state, and they have two campuses and ones down
here in Boise. It stretches the entirety of the state
and they have a lot of at least Idaho famous
alums and things like that. So everybody was affected by this,
and just geographically, it struck the region so hard, and
Moscow obviously loaned out the case if you want to
think about it that way down here to Boise. But
even logistically it was a nightmare across the state. So
it has affected everybody. And again, you don't intend to
become desensitized to these things, but it hits you right
in the face when it's in front of you in
terms of actually starting to think about trial and attending
these hearings that are so emotional, and people were tuned
in across the country and even across the state. They
were interested, they were curious.
Speaker 2: It's just such a.
Speaker 6: Confusing case with still again so many unanswered questions, and
so people were following it and tracking it, and they
were invested and they wanted to see how this would
play out. And they all heard the roommate give the
victim impact statements and we were all just gutted. So
in terms of I guess how we all move forward
as a state and as those primarily Moscow is what
we think about in the victims' families. Of course, this
is something that's going to be a part of the
community's history, the state's history forever. It's not going anywhere.
We can turn the page toward greater healing because there's
some finality to it, and we know he'll spend the
rest of his life and die in prison. But there's
no way to ignore that this happened to this community,
that those lives were lost, and it affected the university significantly.
It affected campus life.
Speaker 2: And feelings of safety and the things that.
Speaker 6: We hold near and dear to the college experience. It
affected Pullman and affected Albright still Pennsylvania. It affected a
lot of people, and his family included. And I think
we're still it's still so fresh, and I've talked to
some of the key people who were involved in the case,
but I think slowly things are I guess, returning to
more of a normal, but even then it's still there's
impacts long lasting, and I think we're just coming out
of it and trying to find our way a little bit.
But I'm grateful selfishly that I don't have to attend
a three month trial again for fourteen hour days. That
would have been quite an experience and I think grueling
in many ways. Obviously that's not important in the grand
scheme of things, but I think the community is somewhat
grateful that we don't have the gigantic media circus in
front of the courthouse every day and we can all
go forward living our lives best we can after this
traumatic incident.
Speaker 5: Well, Kevin, it has been a pleasure talking you. Thank
you for taking time out of what I'm i'm sure
has been an exhausting summer to spend time with us.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks thanks again for thinking of us and for having me.
It was great.
Speaker 5: That is going to do it for this episode of
mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.
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