Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Chilling Idaho Murders 911 Call, Texts Just Released

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Text messages exchanged between the surviving roommates are revealing new details from the night four University of Idaho students were murdered. Transcripts of the texts, along with the 911 call, have come to light in motions filed ahead of Bryan Kohberger's trial. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy has details from the texts and 911 call 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: Rich Schoenstein https://x.com/LawfulRichesCRIME 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 Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. New details about the night four University of Idaho students were murdered are revealed from text messages the surviving roommates sent to each other. Plus, we now know what happened when the roommates called 911 eight hours after the murders. I lay out the timeline and other details. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. From the very beginning, there have been so many questions about what happened the night four University of Idaho students were murdered in a house off campus in November of 2022. Two roommates were there

and were not harmed, thankfully. Now we're getting some answers about what happened that night from text messages the roommates exchanged right after police say the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, Ethan Chapin, and Zanna Carnotel were carried out. Now, I'm going to go over those text messages along with the transcript of the 911 call that was placed more than eight hours after the murders. The prosecution wants to introduce those texts and the 911 call as evidence at Brian Koberger's trial later this year. Koberger faces the possibility of the death penalty if he's convicted of the murders. Koberger's lawyers are also asking again to strike the death penalty. More on that later.

Prosecutors say the texts between the two surviving roommates, DM and BF, provide a timeline and should be allowed under an exception to the hearsay rule at trial. The two exceptions, present sense impression, that's a statement describing or explaining an event or condition made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it, or an excited utterance, a statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement that it caused. Now, the prosecutors say one surviving roommate, DM, was awake and texting the town's rideshare driver at 2.10 a.m. to see if he was driving that night. Then prosecutors write,

from 4.19 and 7 seconds to 4.21 and 50 seconds, DM attempts to call BF, Zanna Kernodle, Kayla Gonsalves, and Madison Mogan. All of those calls were unanswered. According to the timeline laid out by police and prosecutors, Zanna, Kaylee, and Maddie had been murdered by that point in time, and DM had seen a man in black carrying a vacuum-type object walking through the house. Then, from 4.22 and 8 seconds to 4.24 and 27 seconds, DM and BF sent the following text messages. DM wrote to BF, no one is answering. And then DM followed up with, I'm really confused right now. DM then texted Kaylee Gonsalves, Kaylee, what's going on?

BF then sent a text to DM saying yeah dude WTF BF then followed up to DM with Zanna was wearing all black DM then said to BF I'm freaking out right now DM then said to BF no it's like ski mask almost BF says to DM STFU probably in disbelief BF then says to DM, STFU, probably in disbelief. BF then says to DM, actually, and DM responds to BF, like he had something over his forehead and a little in mouth. DM then says to BF, I'm not kidding. So freaked out. BF says to DM, so am I. DM then says to BF, my phone is going to die. BF then says to DM, come to my room. She follows up with, run, down here. These text messages raise questions about whether the roommates may have heard more than what we've read about previously. The DM heard crying and a man saying, it's okay, I'm here to help. Then DM places a phone call. At 424 and 39 seconds,

DM calls Ethan Chapin, and the call was unanswered. DM and BF continue to text. At 424 and 58 seconds, DM texts BF. I'm scared though. And BF responds at 425 and 16 seconds, yeah, I know, but it's better than being alone. Then there's a gap in texting and calling. The next morning at 10.23 a.m., DM texts Kaylee Gonsalves, please answer. Then she sends a text to Maddie Mogan, are you up? And then again to Kaylee Gonsalves, are you up? More than an hour later, the prosecution says there are more text messages. At 11.39 a.m., DM texted her father. Then at 11.50, DM received a text from someone identified as Jay that says bro. At that same moment, DM calls someone identified as EA. And then at 11.51, she receives another text from Jay. Minutes later, that 911 call is

placed. And at 1.04 p.m., DM received a vandal alert that was a text from the university telling the students all to stay in their homes. Now, prosecutors, of course, want to play the 911 call for the jury. The motion states, the statements on the 911 call are hearsay but fall within firmly rooted hearsay exceptions and should be allowed. In general, testimony that is hearsay is excludable at trial. However, there are many exceptions to this rule. Two firmly rooted exceptions are Idaho Rule of Evidence 803, present sense impression, a statement describing or explaining an event or condition made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it, and Idaho Rule of Evidence 8032 excited utterance,

a statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement that it caused. Now, the 911 call was placed at 1156 a.m. on November 13th. It confirms that a male friend of the roommate's found Zanna Kernodle's body. H.J. located the unresponsive body of Zanna Kernodle and informed B.F. and D.M. to call 911. E.A. was present at the time all declarants personally perceived the event, Kernodle being unresponsive. The majority of the declarations were describing to dispatcher Carolina Calvin what they were perceiving, present sense impressions. Those statements relate to Cronodal being passed out and not waking up.

The declarations were made immediately after H.J. discovered Cronodal's body. The world can be unpredictable and scary, so having a great lawyer really matters. That's where Morgan & Morgan comes in. The firm has more than a thousand lawyers, and that's because they win a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. In the last few months, Morgan & Morgan secured a $29 million verdict for a cyclist in Philadelphia and a $2.7 million verdict for a car accident victim in Florida, not to mention a $5.6 million verdict for a car crash victim in Georgia after the insurance company offered their client nothing.

Even if you think your case isn't worth millions, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan & Morgan makes it easy. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're ever hurt, start a claim at ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments. Several people were on this 911 call and the roommates and other people, some neighbors, are apparently passing the phone around at times. A woman said on the call, um, one of our, one of the roommates who's passed out and she was drunk last night and she's not waking up. Another woman interrupts and says, no, we saw. Well, the first woman

responds, oh, and they saw some man in their house last night. Yeah. The 911 call taker is trying to figure out what is going on and says, and are you with the patient? Okay, I need someone to keep the phone. Stop passing it around. One of the callers responds, can I just tell you what happened pretty much? And the call taker asks, what is going on currently? Is someone passed out right now? A female caller responds, I don't really know, but pretty much at 4 a.m. OK, I need to know what's going on right now. If someone is passed out, that's the call taker.

Can you find out? Now that 911 call sounds chaotic. The dispatcher sends an ambulance and at one point a woman on the call says about Zanna, she is not waking up. The dispatcher says to the ambulance, multiple reporting parties on the phone advise saying the roommate on scene is passed out and not waking up, believes she got drunk last night and unintelligible about a male being in the room with them. Another dispatcher on the line says, that one I copy about 20-year-old female unconscious trying to get further.

The dispatcher then says, okay, I need someone to stop passing the phone around because I've talked to four different people. A woman then says, okay, sorry, they just gave me the phone. Is she breathing? The call taker asks. And then the woman says, hello? And then the call taker asks again, is she breathing? The woman says, no. Now the woman, who is a neighbor of the King Road house, then tells the surviving roommates that they need to talk to the 911 call taker. Then there's discussion about whether a defibrillator is available. Police arrive and then an officer says, I think we have a homicide. I want to bring in Rich Schoenstein. He is a trial attorney. So, Rich, it's interesting to me, they're filing this motion in limine for the 911 call.

And we've heard 911 calls played at trial many, many times, many trials over the years. So is this pretty common to have to file that type of motion to admit something like a 911 call where you would call the dispatcher to the stand or somebody from the 911 center and they would admit that? So it's a little bit backwards because usually when I see this, it's a motion by the side that doesn't want the evidence let in to exclude that. And this seems to be a motion in advance to make sure that the evidence can go in. So the prosecution is affirmatively trying to make sure that their evidence is going to be allowed. I don't think that's particularly uncommon.

And I agree with you. We see 911 calls all the time. They plainly fall, in most cases, in the hearsay exceptions that the prosecution is talking about here, and they get entered into evidence all the time. One thing that I thought was interesting was just the content of this 911 call. You know, for many, many months and months and really more than two years now, we've been wondering what was said on that 911 call. We knew it was for an unconscious person, but it paints a very chaotic scene. And just the fact that they're saying that, you know, that Zanna, we now know was unconscious.

She had been stabbed to death. So I don't know if they were just being polite on the 911 call and not saying, look, my friend appears to have blood on her or what have you. We don't know how she was found or what she looked like when she was found. But, you know, unconscious person. And then the police get there and this is clearly a homicide. Yeah, I thought that was a little bit odd, too, right? You expect to hear, oh, my gosh, my friend is covered in blood or something like that. You

would have expected to hear more. So it is a little bit odd the way it is described. But it is what it is. And it paints a picture of chaos, as you say, and confusion and concern. It really takes you into that house in a way that I think we haven't been inside before. You know, another thing we're getting a really good picture of is the timeline. And that's why they say they want to the prosecution wants to introduce these text messages. And this is another thing, you know, where they're presenting this motion in limine to the court and they're saying, we want to present these text messages as an exception to the hearsay rule. And this is why it's pretty common to see these things come in through the testimony of one of the people,

either the receiver or the sender of the text message. So what did you make of that as well? Is filing this filing a motion asking to present these things? Yeah. So first of all, I mean, I don't think they're presenting it just for the timeline. I think that's a way to sell the court on letting the evidence in. And that is a reason you might put this evidence in. But make no mistake about it. One of the things the prosecution is trying to do is eliminate any possibility that the other people in the house committed the crime. That's one thing you would have to do if you were prosecuting this case. You have these two other people who are in the house who survived. And you want to make sure nobody thinks that they might have been involved in any way. And these text messages that show their state of mind

at the time are a good way of doing it. So it is useful to have a timeline. It's very important to have a timeline of what exactly went on when in the house. But I do think that they want those texts in for more than just that. These texts are a little bit confounding. We know that the surviving roommates, BF and DM, were both intoxicated. We know for sure that DM was from prior testimony at motions hearings and stuff like that. But basically, she's texting her friend, her roommate, saying, you know, I'm really scared. You know, something about somebody wearing all black. She's trying to get in touch with the other roommates.

It kind of raises a lot of questions to me about whether she was hearing more going on than what we've heard in the past about hearing somebody crying, a man saying, it's OK, I'm here to help you. These text messages are really disturbing. Yeah, they are disturbing and they're hard to decipher for exactly the reason you say. You can't really trust the immediate perception of the people sending those text messages because it was the middle of the night, because they were probably drunk. So they're not taking in information the same way they would in another condition, and they're not conveying the information. Some of those text messages, right, they're not grammatically correct, but they're also short of report form and they're a lot of initials and they're kind of hard to follow. So

you have people who may not be observing events with the benefit of clarity and may not be communicating what it is they are observing in a precise manner. And another thing that's still a question that we can't answer at this point in time, I mean, the roommate DM is saying, I'm scared though. And BF is saying, well, come down here, run. It's better than being alone. And yet they don't call 911. It seems like a very confusing type of time period. Everything that went on, I know they were drunk, but is this something the defense will make hay of at trial? Yeah, well, I think the defense is going to try. The defense here is reasonable doubt, right? This is a straightforward, reasonable doubt case. You don't have enough

proof that the defendant is the person who did this. And you don't have accurate storytelling of what was going on in that house in the middle of the night. So if I was on the defense, I would say this is all very odd as to what's happening between the two other people who were in the house. Was something really going on? Was it not going on? Were they scared? Were they drunk? You don't know.

You can't be certain as to the meaning of any of it. And I would try to convince the jury that that somehow gives them reasonable doubt. But, you know, you're prosecuting a case. You only have the evidence you have. These are the text messages you have. These are the text messages you have. This is the 911 call you have. That's what you've got to go forward with. Well, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

I don't think there will be any issue with these being presented at trial. I think the judge will allow it. Thank you so much, Rich Schoenstein. Great to be on. See you soon. See ya. Prosecutors also want to be on. See you soon. See ya. Prosecutors also want to admit a number of records, including banking records, surveillance video, and records from stores where Brian Koberger made purchases.

The surveillance video includes video from Linda Lane near the King Road house that shows a white car driving in the area around the time of the murders. So so Then there are many, many financial records for the four victims, the surviving roommates and Brian Koberger. And some of the financial records for Koberger include records for Crypto.com. And there are purchase records for Brian Koberger from Amazon and Dick's Sporting Goods. There are also financial records from Marshalls for Brian Koberger from Amazon and Dick's Sporting Goods. There are also financial records from marshals for Brian Koberger. We know a marshal's receipt was seized from his apartment, and there are target financial records that the prosecutor wants to introduce. And the prosecution also wants to introduce, under the business records exception, transaction records for Brian Koberger

at Under Armour, along with surveillance and financial records from Koberger at Walmart. Meanwhile, Koberger's attorneys are looking to strike the death penalty again. They're asking for this, saying the state has given them a massive 68 terabytes of discovery with no index for what they plan to use at trial. And the state has said it has complied with discovery and has denied holding anything back. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.