Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to pick up where we left
Speaker 1: off with a comprehensive review of the Moscow murders. In
Speaker 1: the courtroom, evidence doesn't just prove, it narrates. Every piece
Speaker 1: tells a story, a timeline of movements, intent, presence, And
Speaker 1: when prosecutors laid out their case against Brian Colberger, they
Speaker 1: weren't just arguing that he was guilty. They were reconstructing
Speaker 1: a path from Pullman to Moscow, from theory to action,
Speaker 1: from sheath to cell tower, from planning to blood. On
Speaker 1: January fifth, twenty twenty three, the probable cause affid David
Speaker 1: in the case of the State of Idaho versus Brian
Speaker 1: Colberger was unsealed. Within it lay at the scaffolding of
Speaker 1: the state's theory that Brian Colberger, acting alone, entered the
Speaker 1: eleven twenty two King rode home on November thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, between four and four twenty a m and
Speaker 1: stabbed four University of Idaho's students to death with a
Speaker 1: fixed blade knife. The case, those are substantial in nature,
Speaker 1: is not without weight. The prosecution has built its foundation
Speaker 1: on six pillars of forensic and digital evidence. Each one
Speaker 1: doesn't just point to Coburger. They overlap, reinforce, and synchronize.
Speaker 1: Let's examine them one by one. The knife sheath and DNA.
Speaker 1: This is the prosecution's forensic cornerstone. During the initial crime
Speaker 1: scene sweep, investigators recovered a tan leather knife sheath next
Speaker 1: to Madison Mogan's body. The sheath was identified as a
Speaker 1: k bar combat style sheath bearing the insignia of the
Speaker 1: United States Marine Corps on the button stap of the sheath.
Speaker 1: Analysts found a single source of male DNA that DNA
Speaker 1: did not match anyone in Cotis. This left investigators with
Speaker 1: two choices, wait for a suspect or create one. When
Speaker 1: Brian Coburger was identified as a person of interest through
Speaker 1: the vehicle tracking and cell phone data which we'll get to,
Speaker 1: agents recovered trash from his family's residence in all Brightville, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: where he was staying over the holiday. Inside the trash
Speaker 1: a discarded item with his father's DNA. The familial DNA
Speaker 1: was then used to triangulate the profile recovered from the
Speaker 1: knife sheath. According to FBI forensic reports, at least ninety
Speaker 1: nine point nine nine nine eight percent of the male
Speaker 1: population would be excluded as the biological contributor. The defense
Speaker 1: will likely challenge this as touched DNA, easily transferable, potentially contaminated,
Speaker 1: but the state's position is that its direct contact DNA
Speaker 1: deposited during the act of the crime. It is, as
Speaker 1: of now, the only known physical forensic link tying Coburger
Speaker 1: to the interior of the house. Two cell phone tower data.
Speaker 1: Coburger's cell phone didn't betray him directly. It betrayed him
Speaker 1: by going silent. Investigators obtained a search warrant for his
Speaker 1: cell phone records, and what they found painted a chilling picture.
Speaker 1: On the night of the murders, Coburger's phone pinged on
Speaker 1: a WSU tower at two forty two am. From two
Speaker 1: forty six seven am to four forty eight am, the
Speaker 1: phone went completely dark, no pings, no app activity, no
Speaker 1: Wi Fi usage. This blackout period precisely matches the suspected
Speaker 1: time of the murders. Then, just before five AM, his
Speaker 1: phone reactivated and ping near Blaine, Idaho, on the route
Speaker 1: away from Moscow. But it gets worse. Records show that
Speaker 1: Coberger's phone had pinged in the area of eleven twenty
Speaker 1: two King Road on at least twelve prior occasions, beginning
Speaker 1: in August of twenty twenty two. The visits all occurred
Speaker 1: late at night or early in the morning. Prosecutors interpret
Speaker 1: this as pre attack surveillance evidence of stalking behavior and
Speaker 1: familiarizing himself with the route. Defense may argue he was
Speaker 1: a grad student who commuted frequently and the pings don't
Speaker 1: prove presence, but the totality twelve visits no friends in
Speaker 1: the house late night times followed by a murdered day
Speaker 1: blackout is compelling. Three vehicle surveillance the white Alantra the
Speaker 1: white twenty fifteen Hondai Lantra was never a random tip.
Speaker 1: It was a turning point of the investigation. Between three
Speaker 1: twenty nine and four to twenty am on November thirteenth,
Speaker 1: multiple security and traffic cameras in the King Road neighborhood
Speaker 1: recorded a white sedan making repeated passes near the house.
Speaker 1: At one point, the car executed a three point turn
Speaker 1: in the middle of the street, odd behavior. At that hour,
Speaker 1: surveillance cameras caught the car driving east on King Road,
Speaker 1: circling the block, returning four times to the vicinity of
Speaker 1: eleven twenty two King Road, exiting at high speed at
Speaker 1: four twenty a m. The car was eventually traced back
Speaker 1: to Coburger through a series of meticulous data matches. His
Speaker 1: registration showed a white twenty fifteen Hondaia Lantra. The car
Speaker 1: had no front license plate, which matched security footage. A
Speaker 1: traffic stop in August had photographed the car and confirmed
Speaker 1: Coburger's appearance, including bushy eyebrows at detail. One surviving roommate
Speaker 1: recalled seeing on the masked man who left the scene.
Speaker 1: In addition, coburgers registered his car in Washington State on
Speaker 1: November eighteenth, five days after the murders, raising eyebrows about
Speaker 1: whether he was trying to reduce scrutiny from the Idaho
Speaker 1: Bolo for surveillance behavior and post crime movements. After the murders,
Speaker 1: Coberger's behavior became its own piece of evidence. Surveillance teams
Speaker 1: tracked him extensively through interior cleaning of his vehicle, including
Speaker 1: removal of the floor mats and seat covers, wearing latex
Speaker 1: gloves while grocery shopping, disposing of trash at odd hours,
Speaker 1: and neighboring bins. Returning to the crime scene area on
Speaker 1: the morning after the murders at nine twelve a m.
Speaker 1: According to cell phone pings. Psychologically, this fits a known
Speaker 1: pattern a fender returns to the scene to relive the act,
Speaker 1: gauge investigation progress, or confirm their success. It also undermines
Speaker 1: any argument of coincidence. Five. Behavioral profile and academic obsession.
Speaker 1: Coburger's academic background and just contextualize the crime it potentially
Speaker 1: informed it. He was a PhD candidate in criminology, studying
Speaker 1: offender behavior, decision making, and compulsive crime. He had conducted
Speaker 1: and now notorious Reddit survey asking participants about their thoughts, emotions,
Speaker 1: and choices while committing crimes. He studied under doctor Catherine Ramsland,
Speaker 1: an expert on serial killers, including BTK. Prosecutors are likely
Speaker 1: to argue that Coberger didn't just plan this crime, he
Speaker 1: built it. Like his thesis project. His movements, preparation and
Speaker 1: silence afterwards show premeditation and intellectual detachment. Number six, the
Speaker 1: surviving witness account. The most chilling human element in the
Speaker 1: affid David comes from the surviving roommate. Her statement forms
Speaker 1: the only visual identification of the alleged killer. According to her,
Speaker 1: around four am, she was awoken by what sounded like
Speaker 1: crying and a loud thud. She opened the door and
Speaker 1: saw a masked man dressed in black walking toward her
Speaker 1: and then out the sliding glass door. She described a
Speaker 1: man as tall and athletically built, wearing a mask over
Speaker 1: his nose and mouth, with bushy eyebrows. She locked her
Speaker 1: door and did not call nine one one. That detail
Speaker 1: has been controversial, but it aligns with trauma response theory
Speaker 1: fight flight or freeze. Her observation, paired with the car
Speaker 1: phone and DNA evidence, creates a multi modal timeline. It
Speaker 1: also introduces eyewitness risk no full face partial memory, fear
Speaker 1: fueled interpretation, but the detail about the eyebrows, later echoed
Speaker 1: by the August body camera footage of Cohburger adds credibility
Speaker 1: search warrant executions the apartment and vehicle. When Cohburger was arrested,
Speaker 1: his apartment and pullman and his HONDEI Lantro were searched
Speaker 1: from his apartment. Police recovered black loves, a shop back
Speaker 1: with trace red stains, a laptop, and multiple data storage devices,
Speaker 1: receipts from old stores showing cleaning supplies, poss hair strands
Speaker 1: from his car seat, belt buckle swabs, trunk carpet fibers,
Speaker 1: gas pedal and brake swabs, stains in debris from floor mats.
Speaker 1: We still haven't received word on many of the materials,
Speaker 1: but they form the basis for a lot of discovery requests,
Speaker 1: legal week spots. In defense strategy, the evidence, while extensive,
Speaker 1: is in bulletproof and here's where the defense will likely
Speaker 1: focus touch DNA. The defense will argue that dNaM the
Speaker 1: knife sheath could be transferred, not deposited through direct contact.
Speaker 1: No murder weapon. The actual knife was never recovered. Cell
Speaker 1: tower in precision pings aren't GPS. They show general areas,
Speaker 1: not precise location. No video of entry or exit. No
Speaker 1: security cam caught them at the door or inside the home.
Speaker 1: Lack of motive. There is still no confirmed link between
Speaker 1: Coburger and the victims. No text messages, no social media
Speaker 1: interactions or non visual contact. Behavior is not proof. Strange
Speaker 1: behavior is in guilt, wearing gloves in public, driving at night,
Speaker 1: or being solitary or not crimes. The defense will try
Speaker 1: to reframe the case as confirmation bias, a suspect who
Speaker 1: fit too well, causing investigators to build backward from an assumption.
Speaker 1: The prosecution will argue the opposite, that the entire digital,
Speaker 1: behavioral and forensic record was pointing at him before they
Speaker 1: even knew his name. The case against Brian Colberger is
Speaker 1: not built on a single smoking gun. It's built like
Speaker 1: a rope braided strands of surveillance, forensics, behavior, and absence.
Speaker 1: Any one thread might be frayed, but the collective it holds.
Speaker 1: What remains now is to test that rope an open court.
Speaker 1: The defense strategy and legal battlefield ahead in the court room.
Speaker 1: Guilt is not about what you know, It's about what
Speaker 1: you can prove, and for Brian Colberger's defense team, the
Speaker 1: fight isn't about clearing his name through innocence. It's about
Speaker 1: challenging every inch of evidence the state will try to present.
Speaker 1: In this battle. The blade is procedural, the weapon is
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt, and the arena is a death penalty case
Speaker 1: that will define modern criminal litigation in America. On January fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Brian Coberger stood in the Layta County
Speaker 1: court room for his first public appearance in Idaho. Shackled,
Speaker 1: silent and blank faced, he listened as the judge read
Speaker 1: four charges of first degree murder and one count of
Speaker 1: felony burglary. He did not speak, except to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: he understood the charges. What followed was the early movement
Speaker 1: of a slow, methodical war between the state of Idaho,
Speaker 1: backed by federal resources and public outrage, and a defense
Speaker 1: team led by capitol qualified attorney and Taylor, one of
Speaker 1: the most experienced public defenders in the state. This would
Speaker 1: not be a fast trial and it would not be
Speaker 1: a clean one. With the state sitting on a mountain
Speaker 1: of circumstantial evidence but no murder weapon, no confirm motive,
Speaker 1: and no video footage inside the house, the defense path
Speaker 1: was clear, not to disprove the c TME, but to
Speaker 1: dismantle the narrative. All right, we're going to wrap up
Speaker 1: right here, and in the next episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: pick up where we left off. All of the information
Speaker 1: that goes with this episode can be found in the
Speaker 1: description box. What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're picking up with our exhaustive look
Speaker 1: at the murders in Moscow and then the investigation into
Speaker 1: Brian Colberger who is Anne Taylor and c Taylor is
Speaker 1: not a courtroom novice, as the chief of the Cootney
Speaker 1: County Public Defender's Office. She's handled numerous murder cases and
Speaker 1: desertified to defend clients in capital trials. She took over
Speaker 1: Coburger's case within hours of his extradition to Idaho, immediately
Speaker 1: stepping down from representing the Gonsalves family in a separate matter,
Speaker 1: sparking minor ethical controversy that was later resolved, But her
Speaker 1: appointment signaled something bigger. The state is preparing for a
Speaker 1: death penalty case, and Taylor is building her defense accordingly.
Speaker 1: Her strategy, based on court filings and procedural maneuvers, is
Speaker 1: emerging in four parts. Evidentary suppression, contamination and chain of
Speaker 1: custody arguments, alternative suspect theories, and narrative inversion through reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Let's start with suppression of DNA evidence. The single source
Speaker 1: mal DNA found on the knife sheath is the centerpiece
Speaker 1: of the prosecution's case. If it stays in Coburger's defense
Speaker 1: has a major hill decline. If it's suppressed, the case
Speaker 1: could collapse. Taylor's filings have already indicated plans to challenge
Speaker 1: the validity of the FBI's genetic genealogy process, specifically the
Speaker 1: method used to build the familial match between the trash
Speaker 1: DNA and the sheath, the use of private genealogical databases,
Speaker 1: which may fall into legal gray areas if law enforcement
Speaker 1: acts as data without consent or court order. The question
Speaker 1: of whether the FBI's identification process violated Coburger's Fourth Amendment rights.
Speaker 1: This strategy is rooted in growing legal tension. When law
Speaker 1: enforcement uses private ancestry data to create investigative leads without
Speaker 1: judicial oversight, does it constitute a search? According to Judge Hippler,
Speaker 1: it did not, But if a judge ruled that the
Speaker 1: process used to match Colberger's father's DNA to the sheath
Speaker 1: was overly invasive or lacks efficient judicial authorization, that could
Speaker 1: have led to the key forensic link being thrown out.
Speaker 1: Two attacking the chain of custody. Defense filings also suggest
Speaker 1: Taylor intends to raise alarms about evidence contamination and chain
Speaker 1: of custody breaks. The knife sheath was discovered at the
Speaker 1: crime scene after multiple civilians had entered the home before police.
Speaker 1: The surviving roommates call friends to the house, creating early
Speaker 1: uncontrolled access. There's no evidence that the knife sheath was
Speaker 1: bagged and sealed immediately upon discovery. No mention of blood
Speaker 1: or prints on the sheath, raising the possibility of secondary transfer.
Speaker 1: Taylor will argue that in a crime scene as contaminated
Speaker 1: as this one, with first responders not suspecting murder, when
Speaker 1: entering the idea that col Burger's DNA couldn't have been
Speaker 1: transferred indirectly as scientifically invalid. She'll bring in forensic experts
Speaker 1: to explain touch DNA transfer possibilities, from door handles to
Speaker 1: shared surfaces to airborne particulate transfer. And if she convinces
Speaker 1: the jury that reasonable doubt exists about how the DNA
Speaker 1: got there, even the prosecution's strongest evidence becomes a maybe
Speaker 1: three creating the shadow of another suspect. It's one of
Speaker 1: the oldest plays in the defense book point to a
Speaker 1: missing suspect even if you can't name them. Taylor doesn't
Speaker 1: need to prove someone else committed the murders. She only
Speaker 1: needs to introduce the possibility. No murder weapon has been found,
Speaker 1: no security camera caught Coburger entering or exiting the house,
Speaker 1: no witness places him inside. Besides a witness who didn't
Speaker 1: see his face, there are hundreds of white launtras in
Speaker 1: the region. There's no confirm motive. The roommates were left alive.
Speaker 1: Why what does that mean about intent? Expect Taylor to
Speaker 1: lean on these gaps. She may argue that Coburger was
Speaker 1: a convenient suspec effect, that law enforcement was under public pressure,
Speaker 1: and that they reverse engineered their narrative based on what fit.
Speaker 1: She may suggest someone else knew the victims, that the
Speaker 1: killings were personal, and that there is more than one killer.
Speaker 1: And even without proof, the suggestion creates oxygen for doubt,
Speaker 1: destroying the timeline through reasonable doubt. At the corra, tailor's
Speaker 1: strategy is undermining the state's timeline. The prosecution's version is
Speaker 1: tightly constructed. Colburger's car enters the area, his phone goes dark,
Speaker 1: he commits the murders, his car flees a scene. He
Speaker 1: returns hours later, but timelines are fragile. Taylor will argue
Speaker 1: that cell tower pings or not GPS, camera timestamps can
Speaker 1: be off by seconds or minutes, car matches aren't precise,
Speaker 1: his phone going dark is not illegal. She may present
Speaker 1: experts who challenge whether the gaps in Colburger's digital footprint
Speaker 1: actually place them at the house. Or merely in the proximity.
Speaker 1: If she succeeds in muddying the timeline, the precision of
Speaker 1: the state's narrative dissolves, and with it, the illusion of certainty.
Speaker 1: In June of twenty twenty three, the Leytau County Prosecutor's
Speaker 1: Office filed its notice of intent to seek the death
Speaker 1: penalty that raised the bar for both sides. To secure death,
Speaker 1: the prosecution must prove aggravating factors such as multiple victims
Speaker 1: or heinous cruel conduct, that Coburger poses a continuing threat,
Speaker 1: that the crime shows utter disregard for human life. For
Speaker 1: the defense, this introduces a second trial phase, penalty mitigation.
Speaker 1: If convicted, Taylor will shift to humanizing Coburger, presenting mental
Speaker 1: health history, family trauma, neurological evaluations, and lack of prior
Speaker 1: criminal behavior. The second phase becomes life or death battle
Speaker 1: over whether Coburger is executed or sentenced to life without parole.
Speaker 1: But Taylor's true objective is to prevent that phase entirely
Speaker 1: by securing an acquittal or a mistrial through evidence suppression
Speaker 1: and narrative fracture. Jury selection the next battlefield. This case
Speaker 1: cannot be tried like a typical murder. True, considering we've
Speaker 1: already had a change of venue, look for jurors being
Speaker 1: sequestered an individual Vordyre, allowing deep psychological vetting of each
Speaker 1: jur for bias, social media exposure, or preconceptions about criminology.
Speaker 1: Because of the highly publicized nature of the case, each
Speaker 1: potential jur will be evaluated not just for fairness, but
Speaker 1: for emotional resistance to horror. The case isn't just about facts.
Speaker 1: It's about whether twelve people can sit through photos, testimony,
Speaker 1: and silence and still decide based on law, not outrage. Legally,
Speaker 1: the prosecution carries the full burden. They must prove that
Speaker 1: Coburger entered the home, that he murdered the victims, that
Speaker 1: he did so with premeditation. The defense must prove nothing.
Speaker 1: Their job is to erode in the court room. It
Speaker 1: will be expert versus expert on DNA, analysts versus analysts
Speaker 1: on phone data, human emotion verse procedural logic. This will
Speaker 1: be a war of credibility, clarity, and stamina, one that
Speaker 1: has already lasted years. Sometimes the loudest thing in a
Speaker 1: court room is in testimony. It's silence. Brian Colberger isn't talking,
Speaker 1: His attorneys aren't talking. The judges silenced, the police, the prosecution,
Speaker 1: the victims' families, and even the witnesses. And in that silence,
Speaker 1: a different kind of noise has taken over tiktoks, YouTube psychics,
Speaker 1: reddit threads, conspiracy charts, and digital hunger to be first,
Speaker 1: not right. In the absence of speech, the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion has become the loudest court room in the country.
Speaker 1: The silence Brian Colberger has never made a public statement
Speaker 1: about the murders. Not at the time of his arrest,
Speaker 1: not during his extradition from Pennsylvania to Idaho, not during
Speaker 1: his first court appearance, not after his indictment, not after
Speaker 1: the prosecution announced its intent to seek the death penalty.
Speaker 1: When asked by the judge if he wanted to enter
Speaker 1: a plea at his arraignment, Coburger replied with a blank stare.
Speaker 1: His attorney then invoked not guilty on his behalf. That
Speaker 1: silence isn't accidental. It's a calculated legal strategy. Every word
Speaker 1: that a defendant says before trial is a potential weapon
Speaker 1: against them, especially in a case where the evidence is
Speaker 1: circumstantial and the legal path to conviction runs through a
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. Coburger's silence is part of legal insulation, part
Speaker 1: psychological war. He knows the world wants to hear from him,
Speaker 1: he refuses. That refusal has created a vacuum, and vacuums
Speaker 1: don't stay empty for long. On January third, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Leyta County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued a sweeping non
Speaker 1: dissemination order, what most people call a gag order. It
Speaker 1: barred all attorneys, law enforcement agencies, investigators, victims, families, and
Speaker 1: witnesses from making public statements about the case. The stated
Speaker 1: purpose to preserve Coburger's right to a fair trial and
Speaker 1: prevent prejudicial pre trial publicity, but it came with a cost.
Speaker 1: In shutting down official communication, the court also handcuffed the truth.
Speaker 1: When people search for updates, they didn't get AFID, davidkids,
Speaker 1: or court records. They got clickbait live streams, amateur theories,
Speaker 1: and unhinged speculation. Even the victims' families were silenced. Kay
Speaker 1: Gonsovas's father, Steve Gonsalves, publicly criticized the gag order. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be quiet. My tatter's gone. You don't
Speaker 1: get to tell me how to mourn her, but the
Speaker 1: gag order stood, and into that information void came the crowd.
Speaker 1: Within forty eight hours of Coburger's arrest, Reddit threads began
Speaker 1: to map his alleged rought, examine his appearance, dissect as
Speaker 1: college papers, and even analyze his body language in court.
Speaker 1: TikTok videos flooded with creators acting out scenes from the crime.
Speaker 1: Some posed as the victims, speculating how they died. Others
Speaker 1: played Coburger narrating imagined monologues from his perspective. YouTube live
Speaker 1: streamers built entire channels around daily updates on the case,
Speaker 1: often with zero access to real evidence. Some of the
Speaker 1: most egregious examples included fake psychic readings claiming to channel
Speaker 1: the victims, baseless accusations against surviving roommates, claims that Coburger
Speaker 1: was framed by the FBI, and women falling in love
Speaker 1: with Coburger like he was Ted Bundy, treating this like
Speaker 1: a Netflix drama instead of a murder case. The Gonsalvis
Speaker 1: and Mogan families repeatedly ask people to stop spreading lies,
Speaker 1: but the flood couldn't be stopped. In the digital age,
Speaker 1: high profile murder case is never just a trial. Its
Speaker 1: content conspiracies filled the silence like mold and a sealed room.
Speaker 1: Some claim Coleburger was part of a secret government program
Speaker 1: studying criminal behavior. Others argued the killings were ritual. Still
Speaker 1: others pushed the narrative that Colburger had accomplices, despite no
Speaker 1: evidence supporting it. One YouTube channel claimed to have proof
Speaker 1: Colburger had a relationship with one of the victims, citing
Speaker 1: body language cues and digital energy. The video got over
Speaker 1: two million views before being debumped. Even as the court
Speaker 1: moved forward filing motion, setting dates, assembling witness lists, the
Speaker 1: internet had made up its mind. It wasn't about justice.
Speaker 1: It was about who could monetize the mystery first. Once
Speaker 1: misinformation begins, it's almost impossible to undo. Here's how it spread.
Speaker 1: Random user posts on Reddit. TikTok creator screenshots it and
Speaker 1: adds dramatic narration. YouTube channel builds a thirty minute video
Speaker 1: around it. Twitter accounts amplify it, saying why aren't MSM
Speaker 1: reporting this? Mainstream news picks it up as online speculation,
Speaker 1: giving it legitimacy. Now it's not just a theory, it's
Speaker 1: a cycle. All of this isn't just noise, it's legally dangerous.
Speaker 1: Colberger has a constitutional right to a fair trial, which
Speaker 1: means an impartial jury. But how do you find twelve
Speaker 1: people who haven't already seen the false claims that Colberger
Speaker 1: was a BTK copycat, the leaked fabricated crime scene photos,
Speaker 1: the endless YouTube thumbnails calling him a psychopath. You can,
Speaker 1: and the defense knows that, and Taylor will use this
Speaker 1: to her advantage, already getting a change of venue, looking
Speaker 1: to individually question every jur about media exposure and sequester
Speaker 1: the jury during trial, because the more poison the jury pool,
Speaker 1: the more reasonable doubt can be injected. Meanwhile, Coburger has
Speaker 1: said nothing, but you can guarantee hees listening. Sources say
Speaker 1: he reads every filing, watches the public response, knows the
Speaker 1: narrative swirling about him. His silence does two things. It
Speaker 1: keeps his options open. If the state case weakens, he
Speaker 1: can consider a plea. If it strengthens, he can claim
Speaker 1: he was respectful of the process all along. It creates mystique.
Speaker 1: In the public's eye. Silence becomes ambiguity, and ambiguity becomes
Speaker 1: a mirror. People will project onto it. Some see guilt
Speaker 1: others see escapegoat, a few even see a misunderstood genius,
Speaker 1: and in silence, all of it can be true until
Speaker 1: the trial makes one version real. The Gonsalves, Mogan, Kernodle,
Speaker 1: and Shapin families are living through a double trauma, the
Speaker 1: loss of their children and the public dissection of that loss.
Speaker 1: Under the gag order, they have been prevented from speaking freely,
Speaker 1: but the the Internet hasn't, and every day they're forced
Speaker 1: to watch people debating how their children screamed, live streams
Speaker 1: ranking the most suspicious, roommates comment sections mocking their mourning.
Speaker 1: Their silence isn't protective, it's weaponized against them, and this
Speaker 1: is the human cost of gag orders in a viral
Speaker 1: media environment. As the trial nears, two parallel stories are
Speaker 1: racing towards collision. The court story based on evidence, testimony,
Speaker 1: and procedure, the internet story based on content, outrage and clout.
Speaker 1: But only one of them matters, and that is inside
Speaker 1: the courtroom, and that's where the public narrative goes to die.
Speaker 1: All Right, We're going to wrap up right here, and
Speaker 1: in the next episode we're gonna pick up where we
Speaker 1: left off. All of the information that goes with. This
Speaker 1: episode can be found in the description box What's up everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to the program. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: picking up where we left off with our exhaustive recap
Speaker 1: of the murders in Moscow and now the trial of
Speaker 1: Brian Coohberger. There's nothing dramatic about justice. It doesn't just
Speaker 1: come with background music or a last minute confession. It
Speaker 1: comes in motions, delays, ruling stipulations, jury pools, and sworn oh's.
Speaker 1: It comes late, and when it arrives. If it arrives,
Speaker 1: it doesn't heal. It just ends the fight. For now.
Speaker 1: Brian Koeberger's trial has not begun. It's been more than
Speaker 1: two years since yearly morning of November thirteenth, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: when four students were murdered in their beds at eleven
Speaker 1: twenty two King Rhode. He's been charged, he's been indicted,
Speaker 1: but no jury has heard yet a single word of
Speaker 1: live testimony. That's not a delay, it's by design. Coberger's
Speaker 1: defense waived his right to a speedy trial in August
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three. That triggered an open ended pre
Speaker 1: trial window, one that his attorneys have used the file
Speaker 1: dozens of mootions, demands for evidence, and constitutional challenges, and
Speaker 1: every one of those filings has slowed the process, because
Speaker 1: that's the point. In a death penalty case. The burden
Speaker 1: is on the state to present a perfect trial, error,
Speaker 1: one bad ruling, one piece of flawed evidence, one mistranslation
Speaker 1: of a constitutional right, and the conviction doesn't stick. So
Speaker 1: the defense doesn't need to rush. They need to fracture, delay, suppress,
Speaker 1: weaken in the courtroom. Time is leverage, and Colberger's silence
Speaker 1: has bought his team plenty of it with the trial
Speaker 1: looming in August. It's built around the idea that pretrial
Speaker 1: litigation will eventually run out of oxygen, but it hasn't yet,
Speaker 1: and the system is not built to move quickly, especially
Speaker 1: when we're talking about a capital murder case. The State
Speaker 1: of Idaho filed its formal intent to seek the death
Speaker 1: penalty in June of twenty twenty three. It listed the
Speaker 1: statutory aggravators required by Idaho law. That more than one
Speaker 1: person was murdered, that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious,
Speaker 1: or cruel, and that the defendant exhibited uttered disregard for
Speaker 1: human life. That the murders were committed in the commission
Speaker 1: of a felony burglary that the defendant poses a continuing
Speaker 1: threat to society. Those aren't editorial statements, their legal criteria
Speaker 1: pulled directly from the Idaho Code Section nineteen twenty five
Speaker 1: to fifteen. To secure death, the prosecution must prove the
Speaker 1: existence of at least one of them beyond a reasonable
Speaker 1: doubt during the penalty phase after a guilty verdict, which
Speaker 1: means this trial, if it gets there, will be bifurcated.
Speaker 1: Phase one guilt twelve jurors must unanimously convict Coburger of
Speaker 1: all four murders and the burglary phase two penalty. The
Speaker 1: same twelve jurors hear aggravation and mitigation arguments. Only if
Speaker 1: they unanimously agree that death is warranted will he be
Speaker 1: sentenced to execution. If even one juror disagrees, he gets
Speaker 1: life in prison. That's the legal landscape, but the road
Speaker 1: to get there is mine riddled. But prosecution has no confession,
Speaker 1: no murder weapon, no eye witness placing Colburger inside the
Speaker 1: house besides one that will be challenged, no video of
Speaker 1: him entering or exiting, no known relationship between him and
Speaker 1: the victims. That's the hole in the center of their case.
Speaker 1: But the edges, the edges are sharp. His DNA was
Speaker 1: recovered from a snap of a k bar knife sheath
Speaker 1: found inches from a victim's body. His white Hondai Lantra
Speaker 1: was captured on camera circling the neighborhood multiple times in
Speaker 1: the hours before the murders. His cell phone records show
Speaker 1: twelve prior trips to the area of the house between
Speaker 1: August and November, always late at night, always brief. His
Speaker 1: phone went dark between two forty seven a m. And
Speaker 1: four forty eight a m. On the night of the murders,
Speaker 1: exactly during the murder window, and then reactivated on a
Speaker 1: route away from the scene. He was back near the
Speaker 1: scene hours later. According to tower pings, a surviving roommate
Speaker 1: described a massed intruder with bushy eyebrows, a description that
Speaker 1: matches the police stop of Coleburger from a previous August.
Speaker 1: This evidence, introduced in court and supported by expert testimony,
Speaker 1: created a narrative of opportunity, intent, and postcrime behavior consistent
Speaker 1: with guilt. But the state must do more than tell
Speaker 1: a story, and must tell one without holes because the
Speaker 1: defense is already sharpening its blades, and Taylor and her
Speaker 1: team have laid the groundwork. They're not running a shadow campaign.
Speaker 1: Their strategy is visible, legible, and deliberate. It includes motions
Speaker 1: to suppress the DNA evidence based on a ledge for
Speaker 1: the amendment, violations in the collection of genealogical data from
Speaker 1: private databases. Motions challenging the reliability of cell phone tower
Speaker 1: data including signal bounced, tower overlap and location radius error.
Speaker 1: Motions to compel discovery on FBI behavioral analysts, claiming the
Speaker 1: profile used to pursue Coburger may have unduly bias the investigation,
Speaker 1: assertions that the crime scene was compromised due to delays
Speaker 1: in sealing civilians entering the house before police arrived and
Speaker 1: lack of early contamination controls, and they've already received a
Speaker 1: change of venue after arguing that the media saturation an
Speaker 1: online hysterio would have poisoned the jury pool in Leyta County.
Speaker 1: Taylor doesn't have to prove innocence. She needs to disrupt
Speaker 1: the prosecution structure. One crack, one juror who doubts the timeline,
Speaker 1: one ruling that limit it's key forensic evidence, and the
Speaker 1: trial could become unstable. If the DNA is excluded, the
Speaker 1: state's case becomes almost entirely circumstantial. If the timeline can
Speaker 1: be confused, the opportunity windows shrinks. If the jury is
Speaker 1: skeptical of digital evidence pings, cameras data, the prosecution loses
Speaker 1: its cohesion. Taylor is banking on technical fracture, and if
Speaker 1: she finds it, the rest could be a mistrial, hung jury,
Speaker 1: or even acquittal. Even with the gag order in place
Speaker 1: since January of twenty twenty three, the public narrative is
Speaker 1: not quieted. The online hysteria surrounding the case is mutated
Speaker 1: into a permanent economy, with YouTube channels that conduct nightly
Speaker 1: live streams, TikTok creators, post role playing re enactments of
Speaker 1: the murders, Reddit threads, float unsupported theories involving other potential suspects,
Speaker 1: dark web conspiracies, and planted evidence. Instead of dissecting court
Speaker 1: documents that hit the docket, every statement is parse for
Speaker 1: hidden meaning, every silence is interpreted. It is guilt, cunning,
Speaker 1: or both. This isn't a backdrop, this could be a threat.
Speaker 1: The prosecution will need to show that its case is
Speaker 1: untanted by public pressure. The defense will argue that is impossible.
Speaker 1: In pre trial filings, Taylor has already laid the groundwork
Speaker 1: for a claim that Colburger has been prejudged by the public,
Speaker 1: and that the jury, no matter how thoroughly vetted, will
Speaker 1: be influenced by the cultural saturation of the crime. And
Speaker 1: while it's certainly a long shot, it's a viable appellate issue,
Speaker 1: and everyone in the courtroom knows it. Let's assume that
Speaker 1: a verdict is reached. Here's what it could look like.
Speaker 1: Scenario one, guilty on all counts, death penalty imposed. Coburger
Speaker 1: is sentenced to die by firing squad or lethal injection.
Speaker 1: The sentence triggers automatic appeals, and he spends the next
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty years in a segregation unit. A wedding resolution.
Speaker 1: Scenario two guilty, life without parole, same conviction, but the
Speaker 1: jury splits the death penalty phase. He receives four life sentences,
Speaker 1: no death, but no freedom. Scenario number three hung jury
Speaker 1: one or more juries refuse to convict. The result is mistrial.
Speaker 1: The state refiles the case, and the process starts again.
Speaker 1: Scenario number four acquittal, He walks free. Double jeopardy applies
Speaker 1: the state cannot try him again. It would be the
Speaker 1: most legally defensible and publicly explosive outcome possible. None of
Speaker 1: these results will bring the victims back, but each will
Speaker 1: trigger its own legacy. Four people were murdered Kale Gonsalvis, Madison, Mogan,
Speaker 1: xanakernodle Ethan Chapin. That doesn't change the trial, the evidence,
Speaker 1: the verdict. They only shape what history says about how
Speaker 1: justice was or wasn't delivered. But the legacy of this
Speaker 1: case will extend beyond the verdicts. It will impact how
Speaker 1: DNA from private databases is used by law enforcement in
Speaker 1: criminal prosecutions, how courts issue and enforced gag orders in
Speaker 1: the digital age, how social media contaminates the idea of
Speaker 1: a fair trial in some cases, how criminology is viewed
Speaker 1: when the accused as a student of it's a very
Speaker 1: thing he is accused of committing. Colberger's case is not
Speaker 1: just about murder. It's about method, access, data, law, narrative,
Speaker 1: and whether the American justice system can still hold the
Speaker 1: line between law and spectacle. This case will be studied
Speaker 1: in law schools, It will be dissected in true crime series.
Speaker 1: It will be remembered in Idaho for generations, and no
Speaker 1: matter what happens next, it will leave something behind. There
Speaker 1: are no clean endings in stories like this, only rulings,
Speaker 1: only sentences, only silence after the last word is read
Speaker 1: aloud in court. But in that silence something is permanent,
Speaker 1: a memory, a consequence, a legacy. That's all that's left
Speaker 1: when the blood dries, the cameras go dark, and the
Speaker 1: court adjourns. All of the information that goes with this
Speaker 1: episode can be found in the description box.