Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger Had Help Committing Idaho Murders: Expert Witness

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students but planned to defend himself at trial by claiming at least two people committed the crimes. Kohberger's defense team hired an expert who analyzed the scene and also believed more than one weapon was used. Meanwhile, prosecutors hired an expert who was set to testify that one person could have carried out the crimes. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the defense claim and the controversy it has sparked in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code INSIDE at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/inside Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Joseph Scott Morgan https://x.com/JoScottForensicCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brian Coburger planned to argue at trial that he couldn't have killed four University of Idaho students. Your Honor, we have produced an expert that believes that it's likely that there were two people, two weapons. Now we're learning exactly what that expert and an expert for the prosecution were going to say, had that case gone to trial and the new questions the claims are raising. I'll go through it all. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. The internet can be a really scary place, especially when you search your name online, because sometimes you'll find there's information out there that you didn't even know was out there. That's why I like Incogni so much. The company can help protect your personal information.

Things like your name, your phone number, address, and other information, so scammers and data brokers can't get that and sell it. You can sign up on Incogni's website, and experts will start removing your data ASAP. Setup takes just minutes. Just create an account, authorizing Kogni to act for you, and they will do the rest. And with their new Unlimited Plans custom removals feature, you can submit custom links where your data shows up, and privacy experts will remove it for you. So if you care about your online safety, and you should, take your data back with Incogni. Use Code Crime Fix for 60% off an annual plan. Brian Koberger is serving four life sentences for the murders of those four University of Idaho students.

We've discussed this case so many times here on crime fix. Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Gonzalez, Zana Kurnodal, and Ethan Chapin were brutally murdered in the house on King Road just off campus in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022. A Kbar knife sheath with Coburgers DNA on the leather strap was found next to Maddie's leg on her bed. She and Kaylee were in her bed together. The scene was gruesome. These victims were brutally stabbed. Zana fought hard for her life. Zana was stabbed more than 40 times.

times. Kaley had injuries to her teeth and tongue, along with head injuries and stab wounds. Some of her injuries indicated she may have awakened during the attack and struggled. Ethan was stabbed in Zana's bed, just feet from where she was attacked and died fighting for her life. For more than two years, Brian Koberger maintained his innocence, but then, weeks before trial began an about face, and Koberger pleaded guilty. Has anyone told you to be untruthful in answering my questions today? No. Has anyone offered you a reward of any kind other than the plea agreement in order to get you to plead guilty today? No. Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? Yes. As Coburgers lawyers were preparing for trial,

they were planning to call an expert to testify that Coburger couldn't have committed these crimes. Your Honor, we have produced an expert that believes that it's likely that there were two people, two weapons. That expert was Dr. Brent Turvey, a crime scene reconstruction expert and criminologist. The state had an expert prepared to rebut Dr. Turvey's testimony. Paulette Sutton is a world-renowned blood spatter expert. Here she is giving a presentation several years ago. We talked this morning about the only thing that will never lie to you is the physical evidence. It's always telling you the truth.

You've simply got to learn how to read that evidence. Both Turvey and Sutton, they would have made communication. compelling witnesses. So here's what they would have both said regarding Turvey's claim that there were two killers and that two weapons were used. Dr. Turvey refers to indicators of more than one assailant. It is not reasonable to think that Ethan would have remained in his bed after waking up or being awake while Zana was being attacked in front of him. This evidence and context begin to suggest the existence of a second attacker. This issue will be addressed in a later section of this report. Number of suspects. At least two suspects were involved in this attack. This is indicated by the fact that multiple weapons were used against Kaley, that multiple types of lethal force were used against Kaley, and that Ethan and Zana appear to have been attacked at the same time. This is inconsistent with the state's theory that these crimes were committed solely by one individual. Paulette Sutton commented in rebuttal, there is evidence that Ethan Chapin and Zana Kurnodal were in close proximity to each other at some

point after the assault began as evidenced and the finding of Chapin's blood and DNA under the fingernails of both of Xanacronodle's hands. One assailant could contain two people in close proximity to each other, especially if the assailant is armed. A single perpetrator can certainly use more than one weapon and can use multiple types of lethal force. Now this may seem like a moot point now since Brian Coburger pleaded guilty and said that he did so because he was guilty, but he was never required as part of his plea agreement to provide any details about the crime. I asked prosecutor Bill Thompson about that last year. You said you under the law, you can't be compelled to force him to allocate. But but why not get a proffer from him? You know, hey, Anne, like, we'll let him

plead, but we need to know where he put the knife and how he got through the house and everything like that. Answer a few questions. Why didn't you ask for a proffer? Well, we talked about that among the attorney team. And we made a decision that we wanted to make sure that the guilty plea itself was solid if he was going to plead guilty. Our experience, and Judge Hibbler talked about this as well, is that frequently when defendants are being asked to explain, they start to minimize what occurred. They can't be trusted for the truthfulness of what they say. And we elected in order to ensure a solid sustainable guilty plea to all the counts that we would not press for more than what the court was going to require as far as the defendant admitting to the truth and the charges.

But a proffer, I mean, you could have then rejected it and said, okay, we're going to trial if you thought he was minimizing and lying, if you thought he was being dishonest. And he could have led you to the murder weapon. I hear what you're saying, Ingenet, and he could have. We don't know if he would have or not. I don't think it would have changed the ultimate outcome. And our interest really is if we were going to be able to lock down a guaranteed result for the families and for the public. But that was the focus.

And we also reflected back to early on, I don't know if you're aware of this, but early on when the FBI first came on board with this case, they sent agents from their behavioral analysis unit, their profilers to work with this. And they told us that based on what they were seeing about the nature of the crime scene, the crimes themselves, that even if we were to get the person who committed these crimes to try to explain why it happened, that it wouldn't make sense to normal people like us, and that they really can't be trusted to tell the truth because people like this live in their own different world, which is completely foreign to what we, as normal people understand it can process. So that was a factor as well in our thoughts.

This was probably one of the most bizarre cases I think that we've ever seen. And that sentiment was shared by experienced investigators who were working on the case from the very beginning. Dr. Turvey was also set to testify that one person couldn't have carried out the homicides in a matter of minutes as the state claimed. Dr. Turvey, that an excessive amount of time would be required for a perpetrator to clean up after the assault. Number one, planning. Whatever planning may have taken place with respect to this crime, it resulted in an excessive number of victims with an excess of bloody transfer and bloody clothing on the part of the suspects. This took additional time to both effect and clean up before they could leave.

Number two, precautionary acts. The precautionary acts in this case include the execution of living witnesses, the cleanup of bloody hands, feet slash footwear and clothing before leaving, and the disposal of said clothing along with the weapons used. Direct evidence of this cleanup can be found in at least some of the dilute blood transfer, which was located in different areas of the home. Indirect evidence includes the absence of bloody transfer from feet and hands, despite the movement of suspects within the homes, the necessary opening of doors, and the absence of bloody footwear patterns at the the scene in general. All of this would have required an extensive amount of time at the scene to clean, perhaps hours, which is inconsistent with the state's theory that these crimes were

committed within a time interval less than 15 to 20 minutes subsequent to 4 a.m. Paulette Sutton commented, washing or wiping hands takes little time, especially if preparations for cleaning are made beforehand. Removal of protective clothing and shoe coverings takes seconds. So to discuss this, I want to bring in the host of the Bodybags podcast. He is Joseph Scott Morgan. He's also a forensic death investigator and really an expert on this case. He and I have been covering it from the very beginning. Joseph, thanks so much for joining me.

I want to ask you, just first off, because we're going to cover a lot of ground today, I want to ask you this whole thing about two weapons and two killers. This is where the defense was going to go with this. Of course, they were going to say Brian Coburger, did not commit these crimes. There were two perpetrators. One of them, you know, neither one of them was Brian Coburger and there were two weapons used. And what are your thoughts on that given what we know now? Yeah. I mean, just so that I can understand this, this was, you know, just a couple hours before, before he went into court,

he was still putting forth this theory or it was alleged that, you know, he was going to make that they were trying to leverage this in some way. And still, he went into court and he admitted to these killings. I've never bought a two-person theory. I think most people out there, you know, agree that it was him and him alone. There was a lot of work put into this case. And listen, I'm all for it. If they have, if defense has,

another perpetrator, I think that it would be grand if they could name them because here's the reality. That person's still out there. How much do you value public safety? If you believe that there's somebody else out there that perpetrated this horror show, please let us know who that is because obviously you had some kind of insight that the police didn't. And I would love to see it.

I'd love to see that evidence of it. If or no other reason, just baseline for the citizens of that area, the citizens of Idaho and wherever else. You know, they're saying it's two people. So now, you know, you've increased the probability that these two people could go out in separate directions and commit more butchery. So if you have that information, put it out there. Let everybody see it for the good of everybody involved in this case. That's an interesting point that you make. Because Brian Koberger, as we both know, when he went into court, he was asked, you know, a number of questions at the plea hearing by Judge Hippler.

As we know, he was not forced to allocute. As part of the plea agreement, he was not asked to provide details about this crime. This was a bare bones, like, yeah, I did it kind of thing. He said that he did this. And when the statement of facts was read saying he did these things, he did. did not disagree with any of them. He said that he was guilty. Now, you make a good point there. If there is somebody out on the loose, the defense probably should provide that information if they care about public safety. But a lot of times the defense says, it's not our job to solve crimes.

No, but they obviously have an indication that there are other perpetrators involved in this. and what they're saying trumps what the police have done, the work that was put in on their part, so they have more evidence there. So if that solid evidence, again, I go back to this, if you're truly interested in serving the people and helping people, then get this information out there. You know, let's all push it out on social media.

If they have insight into this, let's push it out there so everybody can be on the lookout for these people to get them off of the street. and hold them responsible for this massacre that took place there. Let's talk a little bit about why the defense expert, Dr. Brent Turvey, says that there were two killers, two weapons. Basically, he's saying, first of all, that, you know, it's not reasonable to think that Ethan would have just, like, laid in bed and not awakened when Zana is being attacked

right there in front of him, you know, and he's saying, you know, this is ever. evidence and context to show you that there had to have been a second attacker. There were other reasons why he believed there was a second attacker as well, just the time period that this happened in within, you know, less than 10 minutes or so that these killings took place. And he also talks about, you know, just the amount of force used. He says there were multiple weapons used against Cayley. We know that Cayley's injuries were just so heinous.

hurt she had so many injuries to her mouth and tongue i believe she awakened in the middle of this attack mattie was really intoxicated her bac was more than three times the legal limit so she likely didn't awake and couldn't fight back that was what was indicated in some of the court documents early on regarding some of these expert testimony so keely had these horrific injuries all of these kids were intoxicated though so um the the state's expert though paulette sutton she said basically there's evidence though that ethan and zana were in close proximity to one another and she's saying that one perpetrator can use multiple weapons so that's that's not that doesn't mean there was more than one person so what do you make about no that's not indicative of there being more than one person

however a sill hole that the K-bar combat knife is a utility knife. It's got multiple utility. I've said this, the entire time that this case has been going on, talking about the nature of this knife. You're talking about a knife that's just under, I think it's just under 10 pound, I mean one pound in weight. It's just over seven inches in length. the blade is, steel with a blood groove.

And it is meant to kill, but it is also meant to be used in the field. You can use it as Marines have used it to entrench with when they didn't have an entrenching tool. They have used it to open cargo boxes. They've used to hammer cargo boxes shut because of the blunt end of it that you can take it and pound down onto the surface to, you know, tack it down if you have to secure something. The blade itself and the knife itself in total is a combat knife, but it has multiple utilities. The idea that this knife could not have generated, and let's just talk about Kaley just for a second, those injuries that are very horrific, if, you know, if you think that that knife is not capable of generating blunt force trauma,

you're barking up the wrong tree because it can. The thing can be actually turned on its side and used to thrust with, like in a punching motion. It can use to hammer down if you invert it and start to slam it down on somebody's face. And then, of course, you've got this very robust blade that can be driven into her face over and over again. Here's one more little aside as well. You know, these injuries, she had so many of them, and there was such a high concentration of them, that they just did kind of an approximation on the, the insults because when you have an event like this and you've got this kind of feverish thing

that takes place and you've got this really tight concentrated area talking about her face you'll have multiple lines of communication say with sharp force you can't tell where one ends and one begins and forget about sequencing of injuries that's not something that forensic pathologists do where we can say this is injury one injury two injury three so you've got this mass that they're having to interpret there. And yeah, okay, let's just say, did he bring a hammer with him? Is that what he did? Did he bring a hatchet with him? Maybe a bar of some kind of like a lead bar, a lead pipe to strike with? Well, we don't know specifically about the details of the nature of the injuries. We know that there were some pattern injuries. I believe along the chin on one of

victims. I'd heard about this kind of ring presentation that we had seen, you know, the handle of the K-bar actually has these kind of deep grooves that are cut into it. I don't know if that's the pattern that it's generated from, but you can still take that one weapon, that utility knife, and utilize it in multiple ways that can all wind up with a lethal outcome. So one weapon can actually be turned into two weapons because of the way it can be used. Say you're holding the knife as such this way and using it, let's say the blade is down, but then you're caught by surprise by somebody else. You could then turn it.

And because of that handle, you could possibly use that in another way to disable or disarm somebody or harm somebody. obviously. It's got three types of utility. So you've got the stabbing. And if you want to include incising, too, because incisings are slices, you've got stabbing, okay, where you're driving the blade into somebody, you turn it on its side and wrap it around. If you've ever seen a movie or something where somebody takes like a roll of nickels and puts it in their hand to facilitate a strike like that, it's the same principle. Or you can turn it on its end so that the blade is in. inverted from its common usage and you're hammering down with the butt end of this thing. Yeah. It's got multiple utility. That's why it's a utility knife. Interesting. I want to go on to the next point here. One of the other points that they've talked about is just the lack of secondary transfer. What do you make of that? Because I think that a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of blood in this scene. If you look at the pictures, and we're not putting them up.

But there's a lot of blood all over the floor in Zana's room. Horrific, horrific, horrific. Depending on how the injuries are inflicted and how the spatter lands and things of that nature and how injuries occur, bleeding can happen internally. There can be spatter in certain areas. And the blood letting, if you will,

if there are slices and things of that nature, the blood, I'm assuming that some of the bleeding can occur after, you know, the injuries are inflicted. Does that make sense to you? So there are no footprints leaving the room of Zana. Can you explain that? Because that is a bit confounding that this could be such a heinous attack and that there's not more, evidence of somebody leaving the scene. It kind of reminds me of the Pike County case where there was only one footprint. Yep. And yet such a heinous crime scene. So talk to me about how

somebody could make that much of a horrific scene or create so much havoc, but then not leave a trail of bloody footprints. Because they're not necessarily standing in a pool of blood that's going to transfer over to their feet and facilitate this. I also think that the individual that did this was probably wearing shoe covers. Now, you can still pick up on patterns of bloody deposition if you have saturated shoe covers. I'll give you, for instance, you're working in the morgue. Morg's a very bloody environment. We wear surgical shoe coverings there. If blood spills on the floor, you can transfer that to the undersole of the shoe that you're wearing. And I've left bloody footprints in the morgue, okay? It's the nature of it. But it all depends on how

the deposition of, if you go back upstairs with these two victims upstairs, with Kaylee and Maddie, a lot of this takes place on the bed. Now, do I think that the individual that did this did not have blood on them? No, I don't. Matter of fact, I said early on that his car would have been a rolling crime scene. We can get into that in just a moment. I think that he had a covering over his body, and that would have transferred on to that garment or garments that he was wearing.

Of course, he gets rid of the garments, I believe. But that doesn't mean it's going to be on the soles of his feet at that moment in time so that he's walking out of the room and transferring it there. You get down to Zana and Ethan. Ethan's contained on the bed. He's got a concentration in the upper part of his body. He doesn't rise up out of the bed.

And then you have these insults to his lower leg, which still, you know, is kind of baffling to me and that he laid in place. And then we do have Zana. And Zana has got, interestingly enough, out of all of the victims, she's, first off, got the most insults individually. And she's got them on multiple planes of her body. So she's got them anteriorly, posteriorly. It's almost like she's spinning to defend herself. I think that she had a real awareness. But again, that still does not guarantee that he's going to create a pool of blood that he's going to step into and transfer out of there.

If we begin to think about the, you remember the Dickies that have been talked about extensively, this Dickie cover-all system that he may have purchased from some place. It's got deep pockets, right? So before you leave this place, you divest yourself of any kind of shoe coverings that you might have. you've left the door open in the rear you put your gloves into your pocket you walk clear out of that location and you strip that garment off of you

and then you dispose of it somewhere else I think that when this individual made entry into the home if it's through the sliders which I believe it was I think he probably left the door open knowing that he had to exfil and did not want to put his hand up there or engage with it any further

that's just my thought on the matter so yeah just because you enter a bloody scene which i've entered many does not mean that you are going to get blood onto the soles of your shoes and it's necessarily going to transfer interesting you know there's another thing that the defense was hoping to point to as evidence that there were two perpetrators and that they weren't Brian Koberger and that was this you know these unknown male DNA samples that were never run through codis and one was found on a handrail inside the house and then one was found on a glove outside the house and that was a really big point of contention here they never ran the samples through codis you know there was word that they were too degraded to put in then then there was a document

in this latest you know trove of documents that came out that said well no they weren't probative because the K-bar knife sheath DNA was probative. That's why we put it in. It's literally found sitting next to one of the victims. These other samples were not considered probative, so we didn't enter them into CODIS. However, you don't know how that's going to play with a jury. No, you don't.

And that's why I think that it would have been worth their time to have plugged these in. I think that that is highly dependent upon how you define probative, right? Because now we have tons of people out here, as you and I well know, that believe that there were two people involved in this. That's a strong, strong ascertain there. So if that's the case, this could have been cleared up if they had been plugged in and really pursued, you know, both of those. You're saying that they, and I'm universally you, not you, but it's being stated that they were too degraded. Okay, let's have an explanation.

That needs to be explained to everybody. What do you mean by too degraded? Why is it that they have no value in following this case all the way through? Because you do, in fact, want to follow every lead that's out there. And I think that that's substantive. I think that that's something that should have been explored. I think it should have been explored. And if they didn't put it into CODIS, I mean, you can do IGG, and that wasn't done.

And maybe there are some guidelines with that, what have you. but, you know, your job is to eliminate doubt as an investigator. Yes, it is. Not let it hang out there. Yeah, I refer to it as an investigative funnel. At the opening, you're placing information in, rather simplistic, but you're trying to narrow your field down so that you can exclude everything else. And, you know, just with those blood samples alone, all right, I think that that's significant.

I think that it's something that should have been looked into. And again, he did admit to these in court. But again, that goes to a bigger issue, doesn't it? Even though they're saying that he cannot appeal. Times change. Things change. And that could be a real hang-up in the future with this case, I think. He might not be able to appeal per se, but there are still other avenues.

Yes. I still think that. Points of leverage. Yes. Points of leverage. and I'm not ruling out the possibility of a federal habeas petition being filed at some point down the road in this case. I just, there are things that can come up or come to light, and I'm just waiting to see if that happens. Yeah, yeah, me too.

There's other stuff with blood, too. I think that their expert raised, and listen, I'm all four experts coming in, too, because, you know, from a scientific perspective, it's important that, you be able to examine every perspective of, you know, of the, of the case. And it's important that they retained this individual to, you know, to examine and render an opinion. I wonder if this individual, do you remember, Antoinette, when I think Coburger was still in Pennsylvania, and it was, you remember when the cleanup crew showed up and they were going to, you know, clean the house? and the defense team said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your horses.

Yeah, and we want to get our own. That was shocking. So I was kind of surprised. That was another move that I disagreed with wholeheartedly relative to having cleanup crews because, you know, the defense has right, you know, at that point in time. To examine it. To examine it. And I would think that people in the know would have had an indication that Coburg was on the radar at that

time. I don't like the way that looks. It looked bad at the time. But back to my earlier comment, I'm wondering if that individual, at what point in time were they engaged along the continuum here? You know, who were they retained by? I don't know if that individual ever got to go to the physical structure. And how much of this evidence did he physically hold and examine, you know, because if he's an expert, he has an opportunity to do this. You know, he had alluded in one of the reports to the fact that it appeared that some type of cleaning agent had been used and that what was the term that he used, that the blood appeared watered down or something like this. And, you know, if you look at that, when you go out to a scene, you have blood droplets.

Sometimes blood, well, actually, you'll have red blood cells that begin in a blood droplet or a pool of blood. you'll have them, that they will begin to migrate away from the serum. You know, blood is not a standalone substance. It's got multiple components. So under certain circumstances, you can actually have blood that will change in its appearance at the scene. I'm wondering if that's what he saw or did he have an opportunity to test something. I think that they're all valid questions that he raises and they have value, they have forensic and investigative value.

But, you know, at the end of the day, you've got an individual that, in the person of Brian Koberger that has willingly admitted to all of this. And, you know, my, my biggest thing with this and the thing that I hate the most is that he was not compelled to allocute.

That's going to haunt a lot of people over the years to come. You know, and you started out talking about that, Ingenet. That's a critical piece, and still for the life of me, I cannot understand why that did not happen. You know, you're going to get three hots and a cot for the rest of your life,

and we're sparing your life. Tell us what happened, just like they did with BTK in Kansas. Tell us what happened. Tell us where that damn weapon is. And walk us through it. You're admitting to it. So tell us, you know, your life is being spared, but they just didn't have the intestinal fortitude or whatever it is to move forward with that.

All very interesting and good points. Joseph Scott Morgan, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. You're quite welcome. Brian Coburger right now is at Idaho's maximum security institution. There have been reports that the prison system is planning to transfer him out of state. I contacted the Idaho Department of Corrections about that. They said they don't know where those reports are coming from and there are no plans to move Coburger. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time. Thank you.