Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger's Creepy Apartment EXPOSED in New Photos

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

The day Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with murdering four University of Idaho students, police executed a search warrant on his apartment in Pullman, Washington. The apartment hasn't been seen by the public until now. CSI's photographed every inch of the apartment, including Kohberger's papers, books, bathroom bedroom and kitchen. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at what some of it could mean given what we know now in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Bobby Chacon  https://x.com/BobbyChaconFBIProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME 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/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Police Department, search warrant. Come to the door. We've seen the raid of Brian Koberger's apartment from the outside, but now we're getting a look inside that apartment through crime scene photos just released. The photos tell a story and show us what Koberger was writing and reading before he murdered. for University of Idaho students.

I go through all of the photos. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. When Brian Coburger was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania, law enforcement was ready to go with a search warrant for his apartment in Pullman, Washington, more than 2,500 miles away. Now, I'm sure they were hoping

that they would find some forensic evidence connecting him to the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaley Gonzalez, Zana Kornado, and Ethan Chapin. But they did not find any, not one spec. Washington State University Police helped execute the warrant. I spoke with police chief Gary Jenkins about it back in July. Take a look. The apartment was sparse. It didn't look like someone was actively living there.

It was almost to the point where someone maybe was not planning to come back. So it was not a typical occupied type of an apartment. Interesting. So, I mean, lack of, I mean, no clothes hanging in the closet or was it just no books or just, I mean, was there furniture? Could you describe it? There was some furniture, very few clothes, not even a shower curtain. I don't recall if there were any books there, but there was just very little. Chief Jenkins was right. The photos show there wasn't a lot in that apartment. This is Coburger's living room. There's a love seat and a TV. There's also a closet. And inside that closet, it was pretty

messy. But what was there was interesting given what we know now. The living room is sparse for sure. There's a love seat and a TV with an entertainment center and a small coffee table. The love seat was across from the TV with a closet to the side. Now, how often Coburger sat and watched TV? just don't know. Inside the closet, there was a vacuum cleaner. CSIs photographed it and marked it as evidence, and they didn't know at that point what it could contain. They even photographed the canister that collects all of the stuff that it sweeps up. It ended up not having anything of evidentiary value in it, but I can tell you, the Coburgers downstairs neighbor told me that he would often vacuum in the middle of the night, waking her and her small children up. The closet shelves

were full of papers, boxes, and other junk as if it had just been tossed in there haphazardly. It didn't appear to be in any order at all. On the other side of the closet, there was a black nitrile glove. It was photographed, and there were a couple of these. Remember, the killer was described as wearing all black. Also in the closet, a receipt from Walmart for a Dickie's Beanie and receipts from Marshals in Moscow from August and September. Investigators also photographed a target receipt.

from July 4th, that Target is in Moscow. Koberger bought a fire stick. Koberger also received a number of parking tickets. Those were found in the apartment and photographed. He had told a professor he found a way to outsmart the parking attendants. Inside Koberger's Entertainment Center, there were a number of books just kind of shoved in there. The topics all appear to be related to criminology.

Investigators laid the books out to photograph them. Some of the titles were discussed in Koberger's papers and they seem kind of ironic given the position he's in now mass incarceration on trial another book is entitled why the innocent plea guilty and the guilty go free one let the lord sort them out but one stood out to me given coburgers interest in sexual burglary and his interest in discussing ted bundy and the kai omega murders according to an interview with one of his classmates this book was entitled, Unsafe in the Ivory Tower, the sexual victimization of college women. The book discusses how women react when they're sexually victimized. The book was shipped

to the owner in 2012, according to the receipt that is with it. Coburger wrote about research topics, offender decision making, emotionality and burglary with theft slash material gain as the end. In one line, Coburger wrote he intended to go into a prison to conduct research. The topic will be probed by way of in-person semi-structured interviews in a correctional setting. The professor indicated that he or she would have a lot to say about that. Now, Coburger's writing is pretty formal and wonky. He was told by one professor to avoid flowery language. In another assignment, he reviewed a professor's work on sex offender's myopic decision-making. There's a reason crime fix is one of the top-ranked shows on YouTube

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and quizzes that Koberger wrote. Most of his grades were in the 80s and 90s, but he was told on one assignment that he provided a lot of detail from the book but needed to focus answering the question asked and only that. Another time, he was told his writing was difficult to understand

and he needed to focus on shorter, punchier sentences. He wrote another paper about the death penalty and ethics. A little bit of irony there. Koberger's classmates said he was the only student in their class who supported the death penalty. Coburger's freezer and refrigerator contained a number of vegan foods, including frozen pizza, tater tots and almond milk, and vegan cheese.

The freezer looks in parts as if the food is just kind of shoved inside the door. The bedroom showed Coburger's bed and closet. There were a number of shirts hanging in the closet and a few pairs of jeans, along with some other items for bedding, but not much else, just some hangers. Also in the bedroom, a computer on the desk. Around the computer, there was a bunch of dubs. as if it hadn't been cleaned in a while. Then there's the bathroom

where Coburger took that selfie the morning of the murders. You can see the mirror where he took that selfie and the tub and tile appear to be very clean. There's no shower curtain. His lawyers would later say

he threw it away frequently to prevent mold from growing. Investigators pulled apart the drain from the tub, probably hoping to find some DNA, but they didn't find any belonging to the victims. Again, there are a few personal items

if any, in the bathroom. Back in the living room, investigators found some cards addressed to Brian Koeberger. One says, both of your egos, you are dino and a professor, L.M.A.O. Speak softly and carry a big stick unless you can ride a dinosaur. Then do that instead. Apparently, it's a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, and this was a birthday card. Inside, it was addressed to Brian M. dated 1121, 2022, his birthday, a little more than a week after the murders. That and a card from his mother are really the only two personal items in the apartment. It reads, a son leaves your home but never your heart. He discovers his own happiness, which in turn becomes yours. Now, we know that Brian Koberger was a huge problem in the criminology department at Washington State University. He had

had 13 complaints lodged against him by students and the faculty. They wanted to get rid of him big time. Some of these complaints were for sexual harassment. On November 2nd, that was actually 11 days before the homicides. He was given an improvement plan told to meet with his advisor every week and he was supposed to show the work that he was doing. So to talk about these new photos that we're seeing inside of Brian Koberger's apartment, I want to bring in Bobby Chaconne. He's a retired FBI agent, also an attorney. Bobby, thanks so much for coming on. Um, What strikes you first when you look through these photos of Brian Koberger's apartment? Well, I think how Spartan it was, how little personality, if you will, whereas, I mean, there was a few maybe kind of birthday cards or greeting cards, but very few, nothing on the walls, which, you know, on one hand, I know that, you know, I've lived the undergraduate life in a dorm and he was in graduate student housing, which, you know, is always a little, you know, lower end.

It usually comes furnished with cheap furniture and not a lot, you know, in way of aesthetics. But a lot of times you personalize it yourself, you know, even a little house plant or something. And this was nothing. It was nothing there. Now, granted, these pictures are taken, you know, he had time to kind of clean out things and get rid of things. But I was really struck by like just how sparse it was, how, you know, there was nothing personal. It just seemed to be no personal, you know, we know now about the personality type and stuff, and it just seemed to fit this person who, like, didn't have any friends, did not much,

any social life. There was just nothing there. It was just books, which were used in his studies, you know, and maybe one or two greeting cards, one from his mom, maybe. But that's it. It was very, very sparse. Yeah, very, very sparse. I mean, not a photograph.

of anybody. For as close as he was, apparently, you know, we know from talking to celebrate digital experts, they examined his phone. His mother and father were his two main points of contact in his life. He started his day talking to them. He texted them throughout the day. They tucked him in at night, basically via phone, not even a photo of mom and dad, you know, anywhere, siblings, anything. Nothing personal at all. You know, I think that his attorneys would say, well, you know, he has level one autism. Maybe it's a function of that. I would say this is somebody who lived in his own head based on what we know. He lived a fantasy life in his own head fantasizing about what he was going to do based on what we know from his Google searches about non-consensual pornography, the dressing up like this Ted Bundy. character, I guess, from this show he watched on YouTube. I mean, wouldn't you say that's probably a little more accurate? Yeah, the only, the only photograph that I saw that kind of looked, kind of lived in,

if you, you know, that kind of term, like was his, his desk with his computer and his bed next, right next to it. It wasn't even a very fancy bed or anything. It was just like he lived his life looking at that computer and then going to bed. Like, it was, it was the only area of the house that, I'm not going to say it looked normal, but it looked like somebody lived there. The rest of it, that place could have been abandoned months ago. It didn't look at anybody lived there in months.

And this is probably only weeks after he was arrested when they went in. I don't know the exact dates, but it looked like. It was the day he was arrested. It was the day he was arrested. So, what, a couple of weeks after he left for Pennsylvania, maybe less? So, yeah, so that was the thing. The only thing that you could tell, like he spent time sitting at that desk, looking at that computer, and kind of in the bed right next to it.

like that was the only you know you could see that's where he spent the majority of his time in that place yeah and that computer you know when i looked at it close up at least to me i mean it looks pretty um high end i don't know i'm not a computer expert but it just seems like the computer the phone the bed i think you're right i mean that is like how he lived his life and then what struck me too is this this whole thing about him being a vegan and just the you know his freezer and his fridge are stocked full of like almond milk, vegan pizzas, vegan this, vegan that. It was kind of haphazard too, you know, for somebody who allegedly has obsessive-compulsive disorder,

I guess, you know, that everything's just kind of shoved into the door of the freezer. And I know some people will say, well, that was, you know, maybe about personal hygiene with his hour-long showers and stuff like that. But it just seems like he's kind of messy in some spots. We all have our messes, I guess. But, you know, that closet's all messy with all the paperwork and everything. And then you've got, you know, the freezer and stuff like that. It just seems kind of interesting to me.

Yeah, it didn't look like someone who was obsessive-compulsive to me. You know, you could argue that he had, he might have moved out in a hurry. He might have taken, you know, a photograph from his mom and dad and packed it up. And when he drove across country, you know, the hangars in the closets look a little bit disheveled. So he made a left in a hurry. You know, he might have packed up and got out of there knowing what he had done and knowing, you know, the noose was kind of getting tighter. But, yeah, the things that he left behind certainly didn't indicate to me a very organized,

hyper-structured kind of person. Because like you said, I thought the same thing when I saw the stuff in the refrigerator and freezer, like it wasn't like aligned. It wasn't, you know, organized by. color or type of food, you know, like somebody with true obsessive compulsive disorder would, if they left anything behind, they would leave it very, very well organized and structured. And I didn't see a whole lot of that in these photographs. Yeah, I didn't see that at all either. It just seemed very much like, okay, here you go,

like shove it in the fridge, throw my paperwork into the closet, you know, and even the books shoved into the entertainment center. I want to talk about these books. Obviously, he was a criminology student. So we're going to have books, textbooks about things related to the criminal justice system, criminology. But one that really piqued my interest was this one that was about the sexual victimization of women, you know, unsafe in the ivory tower. And this book, you know, was shipped in 2012, according to the receipt. Now, that could have just been stuck in there. Maybe he bought it at the bookstore.

I don't know. I don't know how long because there are redactions on the receipt. I don't know how long he's had it. But this book talks about how women react when they're victimized on college campuses, when they're sexually victimized on college campuses. A lot of these other books we see referenced in his schoolwork. This one pretty interesting to me. This could have been a book he was simply just interested in, given the fact that he was

fascinated by apparently sexual burglary, according to his studies and according to interviews with Washington State faculty and staff. That was his area of study, sexual burglary. And he liked to talk about that. So does that book peak your interest at all as somebody who investigates crimes? Yeah. I mean, as an investigator, the first thing I would have done with those books is I would have taken the list of books and I would have matched it against his curriculum. So the courses he was taken and the courses he was teaching or helped teach as a teacher's assistant graduate teacher assistant look at all the courses that he either took in the past even if he didn't take him at that school because sometimes you keep books from prior schools and and the courses that he was

helping teach now and look at both the required reading and recommended reading and then cross them off the list so all of these books here were you know part of his education part of his academic studies and and work and then you have possibly extras that were not our of the either recommended or required reading, that's the first thing I would do. And I would look at the list of basically elective books that he had that weren't required by any of these courses or even recommended for by any of these courses. But the thing is, the thing why that's not necessarily totally accurate in this case is because, like you said, he actually pursued certain academic courses that might have been feeding into his psychosis. And so, you know,

you know, you can't just see that book and then say, oh, well, it was required reading and his course check and then, and then move on because maybe he took that course because it fed into his fantasies, because it fed into his criminal fantasies or whatever. And so this case has that extra layer. Normally I would look at the books and go, okay, here's the ones they wanted to read rather than they had to read. But in this case, he might have been pursuing academic courses and to teach, help teach academic courses that were feeding into that that that psychosis there's also um another one you know it's

it's so interesting to me to look at some of these books i mean he's now pleaded guilty and and obviously he was a criminology criminal justice major so he was writing about some of the stuff in his papers um and in some of the papers you know these books are referenced these texts are referenced but what was interesting to me we have mass incarceration on trial um that was one of the why the innocent plead guilty. I mean, that's going to get his, there are still some people out there, Bobby, that think he's innocent despite him pleading guilty. That's going to get his supporters all riled up.

But it's just interesting to me that he's reading these books and then goes out and commits a quadruple homicide. Yeah. I think that now looking back, and I just discount the Pro Burgers, the people you you're referring to. I think Dick, I've heard them referred to it. Yeah, the Pro Burgers, which is kind of an apropos name. But I think that, I think that part of his studies now looking back at it were feeding into his fantasies. That was the way he was, because we know a lot of times these killers, you know, they often enjoy the hunt of people, like the lead up to the actual

crime also feeds into them. Well, this guy had a much longer and much more, extensive lead-up to this murder in that he was studying all this stuff. He was probably finding pleasure in reading about women who were sexually victimized during burglary, say, or even talking about it to women. You know, we know over and over again, we've seen interviews of women that said, I felt uncomfortable just talking to this guy. So I think that he had that in him. And all of this was feeding and not only feeding into, but leading up to, you know,

that night at 1120. to King Road. We also, in this thing, have his improvement plan. The staff, the faculty had met with him and said, look, there are issues with you. He was put on notice that there were issues with him. He was even suspicious, according to some of the interviews with his classmates, that he was going to be kicked out of the program or at least lose his TA position, which would mean his funding would be cut.

And he probably wouldn't be able to afford to stay in school. And on November 2nd, this is 12 days before the homicides. He's given an improvement plan where he has to meet with the supervisor and an established meeting time. I mean, this is like all very like, yeah, like this is what you do. You meet with your supervisor when they tell you to. Keep track of weekly hours and provide report to supervisor. Establish weekly goals with supervisor and discuss whether previous work, week's goals were met, all of this stuff.

So they had him on an improvement plan. I mean, this happens just 11 days before the homicides. Does this speed up his? Yeah, he was definitely, you know, devolving, if you will, I think, both in his focus and his work. And maybe because he was thinking about what he was going to be doing. And we had that in the FBI. We called it a 90 day file review. So every three months, you're super.

supervisor would bring you in. Your stack of cases would be on the desk. You'd go, but what did you do the last 90 days? What are you expecting to do the next 90 days? And what's your plan on all these cases? And they would mentor you and give you ideas and things and kind of review what you did. But and then if you were a disciplinary problem, you'd be put on 60 day fire reviews or 30 day fire reviews. It would get shorter and shorter and shorter. It looks like they were having problems with him. And this was a disciplinary measure. Now, normally it's probably not every week that you have to meet with your supervisor and say, this is what I did last. week. These were my goals. These were the goals I met and didn't meet last week. And these are my goals for this week. You know, I think they were kind of tightening the leash on him academically. And, you know, from an employment perspective, because he was not up to the tasks of doing whatever he was supposed to be doing for the university. This to me, when I was reading the things that you just read off, it looked to me like a disciplinary measure that we got to keep you focused because you're all over the place. You're not doing your job. We're paying you and you're pursuing, you know, these academic.

credentials and you're not keeping pace. And so now we're going to have you meet every single week, say what you did this past week, what you're going to do next week? That's to me like the leash was tightening. The university wasn't happy with him. Whoever supervises him and kind of monitors his work was not happy with him. And so it looks like this guy was unraveling. He was unraveling and they were preparing to get rid of him. They were concerned. They said it in the interviews. They were concerned about a civil lawsuit. One of the staff members said that. And so they were preparing to bounce him. And this was one of the ways in which they were going to do it. It's sad to me how many red flags there were about this guy. I'm not saying they could have said he was going to go out

and commit a quadruple homicide. But they knew he was a problem and they feared he was a future predator. And it's just sad that they feared a civil suit and couldn't just bounce him and get him out of there sooner. And he knew that. And he knew all of that. This is like what that, what that thing you just read off to me was he, he's on notice now. Like he, they're pushing him out the door and he feels their hands on his back. And so that's, you know, that's probably their concern about like, you know, there are certain people,

you know, we've all had coworkers that kind of seem discontent at work or whatever. But there are then these cases where you hear people. say, yeah, he's the kind of guy that I knew, you know, wouldn't take it well. He would, you know, the term go postal because of all the, you know, postal facility shootings we had when people gotten fired or disciplined or whatever. And so I think that, you know, they were worried. I think they had a legitimate concern that this is a guy who's not going to take well to being disciplined, not going to take very well at all to being shown the door. And they had a real concern. Now, why is that? Because there were indicators that he doesn't deal well with that kind of

stuff. And that's a problem. That's a red flag that it goes beyond the employment relationship to me. It goes to, is this person so emotionally or mentally unstable that we have a problem? And I have retired FBI friends who are in the business now of advising businesses on how you get rid of an employee without these kind of repercussions. And there are processes and procedures that are very well advised to be followed so you don't have an incident. So you don't have to say somebody come back to an office with a gun and shoot their coworkers. And so there are, these are specialists in it. And I have friends who are specialists in this field. And it seemed like, like the red flags you're talking about should have somebody in that type of field should have been consulted and said, how do we handle

this person if we think? And I get it. Like nobody knows beforehand. But you, if you have that kind of inclination or that even concern, now what level of concern you have to have before you consult an expert or bring somebody in in the employment and labor relations field that says, if this is a problem employee and you're thinking about getting rid of them, then here's how you should handle it. And I don't know that that was done in this case. Academics tend to think that they know a lot about stuff that they don't. This is a labor and employment law type of procedure. This doesn't have to do with criminal justice. But there are experts, and I know some of that do advise companies and institutions. And if you have an employee that you feel is not going to

take very well and may have a negative reaction to either discipline or termination, then you need to start early in the process consulting that expert and take the steps that they advise to minimize any damage that this person may cause. Now, I'm not saying that that would have happened in this case. But there are clear indications, like you said, that they felt this person was an issue and let's just get rid of him. But the problem is, if you think he's an issue, getting rid of him may exacerbate that issue. Right. I think this speeded up his plan. It very well could have.

I mean, look, we know his dad flew across because he had the tickets already. He might have been planning on getting out of there, you know, because he knew the hammer was going to fall. And he might have packed up a lot of stuff and had it, you know, ready to go when his dad arrived and they got the heck out of there. And then, like you said, he thought, oh, you know, I'm not coming back here anyway. So I can do this, this heinous act and then get out and not be a. around when the repercussions come down, that's also a possibility. Very much so. Bobby Chacon, thank you so much, as always, for your time. I appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Investigators also searched Brian Koberger's office at Washington State University. It was pretty

barren. He shared it with other students. It's not believed that anything of any evidentiary value was found there. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Angie Nett Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time. Thank you.