Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 9 Leaked Details in Bryan Kohberger's Case Revealed

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That's video footage of suspect vehicle one circling the King Road neighborhood minutes before four University of Idaho students were murdered. And a new report by Dateline reveals Brian Koberger's Google searches about pornography, serial killer Ted Bundy, and the possible intended target that morning. I go through the new information. I'm Antoinette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. Now, all I can say is wow about this new information that has been revealed by Dateline

Starting point is 00:00:50 about the Brian Koberger case. Jury selection in Koberger's death penalty case is scheduled to begin on July 30th. That's less than three months from now, and it's not that far off. With the trial that close, this trove of new information has come out and it was aired, as I mentioned, on an episode of Dateline. It revealed Koberger's Google searches for

Starting point is 00:01:10 pornography, selfies he took of himself wearing all black, including hoodies, and searching several times over three months before and after the murders for serial killer Ted Bundy. Now, prosecutors could possibly use the searches for pornography about a woman being passed out to point to a possible motive. Dateline also revealed who investigators believed was the intended target that morning and the order in which the four students were killed. We'll talk more about that in a bit. It's actually something we've discussed here a few times on Crime Fix in the past. Koberger's lawyers have said he maintains his innocence in the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, Ethan Chapin, and Zanna Kernodle in the early morning hours of November 22nd,

Starting point is 00:01:55 2022. Now, prosecutors have said they linked Brian Koberger to the murders on King Road through a single source of DNA left on a K-bar knife sheath just like this one, that DNA left on the inner snap of the knife sheath. This knife sheath, the ones very similar to this one, was left next to Maddie Mogan's body on her bed. Koberger was taken into custody at his parents' home in Pennsylvania on December 30th, 2022. Police have revealed in hearings that he was wearing a black hoodie and they feared he was destroying evidence, so they broke down the door of his parents' house, rushed in, and took him into custody. Police said they could see Koberger in his parents' kitchen using a drone with a video

Starting point is 00:02:35 feed. Koberger's lawyers have said his parents were zip-tied and Koberger was taken into custody, and Koberger, in his own kind of odd way, suggested to the officers that they get coffee sometime at a later date. Koberger's lawyers have suggested that that is just one example of the way in which he lacks the ability to pick up on social cues because he has autism. But back to this new information that's come out. Koberger was working on getting his PhD at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He left Pennsylvania for Washington in late June. He got his Washington driver's license on July 1st. Later in July, Brian Koberger went to a pool party in Moscow at the Grove Apartments. We've

Starting point is 00:03:16 reported on that in the past. But Dateline reports Koberger made some women there uncomfortable, including a married woman who had to signal to her husband to come over and intervene. A woman named Holly told Dateline that she exchanged numbers with Koberger at that party. She said he later texted her about their shared interest in hiking. The text was oddly formal. She said it read, Hey, I am pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday. I really enjoyed that activity, so please let me know. Thanks. Holly told Dateline she got distracted and never responded. The following month, on August 16th, Dateline says Brian Koberger's cell phone records show he googled Ted Bundy's

Starting point is 00:03:55 name with a typo and a paper written about Bundy by one of his professors entitled, Ted Bundy on the Malignant Being, an analysis of the justificatory discourse of a serial killer. Ted Bundy killed women in the 1970s. He went to college in Washington State and then moved east to Florida, killing two sorority sisters at the Chi Omega House in January of 1978. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1989. Ironically, Brian Koberger's mother had actually written to her local paper at the time opposing the death penalty for Ted Bundy. But that was before Brian Koberger was even born. That same day on August 16th, Maddie Mogan had posted a photo on Instagram of her and her roommates. And that very same day, a noise complaint was called in to Moscow police for the house on King Road.

Starting point is 00:04:44 Is this your place? Yeah. Perfect. You know why we're here? I assume noise. Noise, yeah. Five days later, the night before classes started at the University of Idaho, Brian Koberger was pulled over less than two miles away from the King Road house. We've told you about that before.

Starting point is 00:04:59 Five days later, Dateline says Koberger Googled, when can a cop detain you? Lately, I've been seeing some really amazing makeup trends on social media, but no matter the trend, I feel like there's always that one brand you come back to. For me, it's Thrive Cosmetics. And honestly, I'm really excited that they're sponsoring Crime Fix because I've been using them for a while now. Thrive makes 100% vegan, cruelty-free products that are clean, high performance, and made to last from everyday basics to bold, expressive looks. And what I really love about Thrive, they give back. For every product you buy, they donate to communities in need, from women facing cancer or homelessness to survivors of abuse. They've donated more than $150 million so far. And the first time I tried Thrive's

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Starting point is 00:06:25 Dateline says those searches included pornography related to passed out, forced, drugged, and sleeping. And remember when Ann Taylor recently asked Judge Hippler to bar prosecutors from using two words to describe Brian Koberger? Our request is that the court not allow the state to label him in testimony as a psychopath or a sociopath. Because any kind of testing is unreliable, that would become problematic within the rules of evidence to do so, and the inflammatory nature of those kinds of labels would... I'm not aware of any testing that has been done that has reached that conclusion. Am I missing something?

Starting point is 00:07:16 You are not missing anything. There has not been any testing. There has not been any labeling. This, again, is my opportunity to bring a preventative motion to protect Mr. Koberger's constitutional rights. We may now know why Ann Taylor made that request. Dateline reports that in late September, Koberger Googled sociopathic traits in college students. And later in October, Koberger Googled, can psychopaths behave pro-socially? Now, it's not clear if these searches were related to his coursework, himself, or something going on in class. Koberger was certainly having a rough time adjusting to life at Washington State. He was a teaching assistant, and in early November, WSU faculty met with him about an improvement plan after he met a student

Starting point is 00:08:02 at her car and gave her the creeps. After this, there were more visits to Moscow, with Koberger's car pinging off the cell tower that covered the King Road house. That's something we've told you about many times, that an FBI analyst will testify that Koberger's phone was in the area of the King Road house on 23 occasions from July until November 7, 2022, and these visits were late at night. No one has ever said whether the car stopped near the house or not. Dateline also reports that investigators found several Instagram photos of female students from Washington State University and the University of Idaho on Koberger's phone, and that some of those students were friends of and Instagram

Starting point is 00:08:45 followers of Maddie, Kaylee, and Zanna. Now, when it comes to the night of the murders, Dateline revealed investigators' theory about the intended target, and they also revealed details that only the killer would know. They believe Maddie Mogan was the target, but they don't know when she could have caught Coburger's eye. They believe she was the target since the killer went to her room, but didn't expect Kaylee Gonsalves to be there, which threw off his plan. Dateline reports that investigators believe Zanna Kernodle heard the loud struggle between Kaylee and the killer and went to check it out, but then the killer chased Zanna to her bedroom where she fought for her life. And then Ethan Chapin, asleep or passed out in the bed, was killed with one knife strike to an artery and his lower legs

Starting point is 00:09:31 carved in some way by the killer. Dateline quotes investigative sources as saying the killer sat down in a chair in Zanna's room, exhausted, leaving impressions from blood on the chair, before leaving the house, walking past surviving roommate DM and speeding away, leaving the neighborhood. Later that morning, after 6 a.m., Dateline says Koberger called a phone registered to his father three times, talking one time for at least 37 minutes. Then his phone showed he returned to Moscow for a time after 9 a.m., but then went home. Later that morning at 10.31 a.m., he snapped this selfie giving a thumbs up

Starting point is 00:10:07 in the bathroom mirror. We showed that photo to you nearly two months ago when prosecutors filed it in a motion. Three days after the murders, Stateline reports that Koberger Googled the University of Idaho murders for the first time and then Googled his own name. He followed news of the case,

Starting point is 00:10:24 watching at least 60 items about it, including pieces on law and crime and other YouTube channels. He took more selfies in black hoodies and even watched a show in December on YouTube called Ted Bundy, The Essence of a Psychopath, and watched another show about the murders, comparing the murders to Ted Bundy with Kaylee and Maddie's photo on the thumbnail. So to talk about all of this, I want to bring in Josh Ritter. He is the host of Courtroom Confidential on YouTube. He's a former prosecutor with the LADA's office and currently a defense attorney. Josh, what are your thoughts on the sheer amount of information that Dateline aired

Starting point is 00:11:01 the other night? It just seems like an incredible amount of information to come out before trial, weeks before trial. Yeah, it was wild. I was not expecting that at all. And as you continue to watch the Dateline episode, it kept on coming. It wasn't like they had a couple of brand new revelations. It seemed like the entire episode just was filled with really shocking and very detailed and what I would call kind of insider information on all of this. I mean, we received details even to the point of what they believe took place inside of that home. And to your point, I don't, I'm curious how much of this is information we're going to actually learn at trial and what of any of it might be admissible. Yeah, I was wondering, will some of this even be admissible? Will some of it even be deemed to be relevant by the judge?

Starting point is 00:11:57 I mean, there is talk about searches for pornography. I mean, I think that the state could present that as potential motive evidence. Why else would somebody go into a house and target one bedroom potentially in the middle of the night with a girl sleeping and passed out when there turned out to be two young women in there? I mean, that could be motive evidence or it could be something that comes in during the penalty phase if they get to that point, if there's a guilty verdict. So these are all things that the judge

Starting point is 00:12:34 is going to have to determine whether or not they're admissible in the first place. And then the selfies on top of that. No, you're absolutely right. And I think you nailed it when it comes to the point of motive. Motive, in my view, has always been the biggest question mark that the prosecution is going to have to answer in this case and that we haven't really heard much about. Here or there, we've heard that perhaps he may have driven by the house previously, that maybe he had

Starting point is 00:13:02 some overlap with the girls inside of the home from the community at his college but it wasn't really clear as to why why was he targeting this house was there anyone in particular inside of that home that was the target um and you're right I think a lot of what we're learning may provide insight into all of that the idea of uh the pornography that he was looking at was this some sort of fixation that he had the idea that he was looking at um and had saved and had a a large cache of of images on his phone that were taken of other young women that happened to have a connection to the girls inside the home. But nothing that I heard in that Dateline episode that still shows a direct connection to any one of the girls inside of the home. But it was certainly much more information on that front, the issue of motive, than we've heard before now.

Starting point is 00:13:57 Yeah, it's interesting because we've repeatedly heard and even Judge Hippler has said the digital evidence doesn't show any connection between Koberger and the victims. But this sounds like there's potentially a tangential connection if there are indeed photos of their friends and Instagram followers on Koberger's phone. And so there was also mention of something we had reported a week or two ago that the state has an expert that says that there was some anti-forensic wiping of something going on on his work computer at WSU in the days before and after the homicides, which is very interesting. So if you're the prosecutor and you're sitting at home on Friday night watching Dateline, is this giving you heartburn? I mean, this is the biggest

Starting point is 00:14:50 case of Bill Thompson's career. He's at the end of his career. He was supposed to be retiring. Is this giving you heartburn? I can't imagine with a non-dissemination order in place that he signed off on this, but maybe, who knows knows we don't know how this stuff came out no i i think you you are getting heartburn i think you're you're throwing your tv dinner at the screen you're you're very upset by this because and remember too this case had come under such scrutiny for its media attention that they moved it all the way from upstate Moscow, Idaho, down to Boise, just to try to address the issues of the amount of attention that this case was getting. This is only going to exacerbate and accelerate all of that interest. And yes, if this is not privileged, but private investigatory material that you had not released yourself and that you

Starting point is 00:15:47 have a very close-knit group of investigators and you know exactly who has access to this information and you're making sure that that's not being disseminated to then see perhaps that information itself or you know second degree removed uh access to that information being put on television, I imagine they were probably very furious with it. And the defense has to be furious as well. Yeah, I mean, they are concerned with the public already convicting their client before a jury has been picked. That was their biggest concern when they asked for a change of venue so the way that this dateline episode came out and i'm not trying to

Starting point is 00:16:30 say that there was something about it that was um unfair in the way that they presented the information but the way that it all played out it made the case for brian coberger invite my view much more convincing and so now you have to wonder if the people in that potential jury pool who have not, in my understanding, haven't even been sent a summons yet, if those people have seen this episode, I imagine that's going to be another difficulty during jury selection for them. So if you're the defense, are you filing a motion today or in the next day? Because there's a pretrial conference scheduled for this week, the final pretrial conference scheduled for Thursday. Are you filing a motion about something having to do with this? I mean, this has got to come up on Thursday. I can't imagine what that motion would

Starting point is 00:17:16 be, but knowing this defense team, they are very litigious and they probably will file something. From the judge's perspective too, he's got to be very upset. I mean, he's, I thought, walked a very fine line and reasonably so in saying, you know, I'm going to lift certain aspects of a gag order and certain things that are under seal because this is a public trial and we want some of this information released. But obviously, some of it is very closely guarded and central to the prosecution's case. And they don't want that information coming out. So people don't prejudge it ahead of time. So, yeah, I am I am sure that there are going to be some very difficult conversations at this next conference hearing. So let's talk a little bit about what was in there. We've got Brian Koberger, who's a criminology student studying in Washington State, Googling about Ted Bundy,

Starting point is 00:18:13 a prolific serial killer in the 1970s who started killing people when he was a college student in Washington State. Now, he had a professor who wrote a paper about Ted Bundy. So is this part of his studies? Is, was he looking to do something on Ted Bundy with part of his studies? We don't know. We don't know. Um, but it certainly doesn't look good. And then he's got this, um, stuff he's watching programs about Ted Bundy and he's wearing the black hoodie. Um, and it, there's like that advertisement, the thumbnail for the, the Ted Bundy and he's wearing the black hoodie. And there's like that advertisement, the thumbnail for the Ted Bundy show and Bundy in the thumbnail is wearing the black hoodie.

Starting point is 00:18:52 And it almost kind of seems like, is he mimicking or trying to, you know, idolize or, and, you know, replicate Ted Bundy. Yeah. And this all goes back to your previous point about motive. Again, I think that the prosecution is really going to need to present as much of that that they can to the jury because the jury is going to be wondering why. If you're accusing this man of committing these horrific crimes, what connection does he have to the victims? And maybe it is something like he was emulating or trying to be like someone that he you know even a serial killer that he may have admired now the defense

Starting point is 00:19:32 obviously is going to say what are you talking about he's a criminology student of course he's going to be studying these things of course he's going to be googling uh someone like ted bundy it's part of his studies and don't try to tell me that just because he's in to be Googling someone like Ted Bundy. It's part of his studies. And don't try to tell me that just because he's in a hoodie and a selfie that somehow that makes him a guilty man. But the prosecution is presenting this kind of case of tiny bits and a tapestry of information that hopefully convinces the jury to give them some idea as to why this man would commit this crime. And, you know, something that I can see now why they wanted his, you know, phone information, Google searches suppressed. You've got him Googling about psychopathy, sociopaths. I mean,

Starting point is 00:20:28 that could have been part of his studies, too. But I'm sure the prosecution has a theory about that as well. Yeah, again, what's so bizarre about this case, or there's many unique things about this case, but all of this, if it wasn't for him being a criminology student, I would say is far more powerful. If you just have a person who's in no way connected to the study of crimes, someone studying, someone Googling Ted Bundy or psychopathy, or how does a person who's a sociopath or psychopath behave normally in society? I mean, all of this is incredibly suspect stuff, unless you're given the background that that person is in fact studying for their PhD in criminology. So I imagine it will be admissible. I imagine the prosecution will ask for it because it does give some insights into what he was thinking in the days leading up to these murders. But if you're the defense, I think you're pounding your fists on the table

Starting point is 00:21:16 saying this is irrelevant. It really shows nothing. All it shows is that the man happened to have been studying criminology, and that's probably the point they're going to try to drive home to the jury. And there's this other thing about Dateline Studies playing the Britney Spears song performed by somebody else, the Britney Spears song Criminal, where the lyrics are, he's a villain by the devil's law. He's a killer just for fun, fun, fun. That man's a snitch and unpredictable. He's got no conscience.

Starting point is 00:21:42 He's got none, none, none. You know, I don't even know if that comes into evidence. I mean, he's listening to a song on his phone. Is that even relevant? Yeah. At some point, the judge, I think, is going to have to draw a line and say, listen, you can find a nefarious angle on nearly everything that might be on that phone, but that doesn't make it relevant. That doesn't make it admissible. So, you know, if he's listening to one song in the midst of an entire playlist, probably not irrelevant. But if he's listening to one song repeatedly, day after

Starting point is 00:22:18 day, perhaps that does become more relevant. We don't know what the aspects are surrounding this particular song or his searches for Ted Bundy or everything else. But, you know what the aspects are surrounding this particular song or his searches for Ted Bundy or everything else, but the judge is going to have to make a call on a lot of this, but I imagine some of it will come in. Also, does the stuff with the workmate, the office mate of his, the friend of his, the woman who lived in his apartment complex come in. That to me seems like it could be possibly aggravating evidence if this gets to a penalty phase where this woman, she actually had a crush on him. They worked together.

Starting point is 00:22:58 They were friends. And then she suspected that he broke into her apartment and moved some stuff around. She asked him to install a security camera and he helped her do that. She then suspected maybe he had that on her on his phone. We don't know if that's true. But does that even does that come in during the trial phase? I'm not even sure that comes in. The judge is always, with any piece of evidence, going to have to weigh its probative and prejudicial value and and here the prosecution is going to say listen this shows the type of person this shows an

Starting point is 00:23:32 mo this shows um a a a internal desire to kind of control women watch over women be uh you know um invasive of their privacy um but the process But the defense is going to counter and say, are you kidding me? This has nothing to do with the crimes charged. This is several degrees removed. And all you're doing is putting my client's character on trial, which is not permissible. And so, again, I don't know where the judge will come out on something like this, but I imagine he might lean towards the idea that it's a little more prejudicial than it is prohibitive. Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens this week. They still have that non-dissemination order, but it seems like that

Starting point is 00:24:18 thing's been thrown out the window right now. I reached out to both Ann Taylor and Bill Thompson to see if they had a comment on all of this, and they have not yet responded. And I don't think they will. Josh Ritter, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. So it should be interesting later this week at the final pretrial conference to see whether or not this Dateline episode comes up in this release of all of this new information that was certainly going to be part of the state's case at trial. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me.

Starting point is 00:24:50 I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 9 Leaked Details in Bryan Kohberger's Case Revealed

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