Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Disturbing Autopsy Reports Released in Bryan Kohberger Murders

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Autopsy reports for the four University of Idaho students murdered in a home off-campus in November 2022 have been unsealed by the court. Medical Examiner Dr. Veena Singh was prepared to testify that Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin suffered a "high degree" of pain and suffering. Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to committing the murders. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the reports and what they reveal about the crimes in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Joseph Scott Morgan https://www.youtube.com/@josephscottmorganCRIME 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.

There is no way that anyone will ever fully appreciate. And I hope no one ever does what went on in that house that night relative to the brutality that was exacted on these kids. Autopsy reports just released reveal the horror that took place inside the house on King Road and what the four victims, Maddie, Kaylee, Ethan, and Zana endured. We go through the reports and what they tell us about claims that more than one killer was involved. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Ann Janette Levy. You know, it's been nearly a year since Brian Koberger walked into a courtroom in Boise, Idaho, raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth. It was July 2nd, 2025, and after maintaining his innocence for nearly three years and claiming early on that he looked forward to being exonerated, Koberger admitted to murdering Maddie Mogan, Kiela Gonzalez, Ethan Chapin, and Santa Cernodal. We've talked about this case more times than I can count here on crime fix and law and crime.

Coburger said he did it. He agreed with the statement of facts read by Layta County prosecutor Bill Thompson. Coburger did not equivocate. He did not waver. Coburger bought a K-bar knife sheath and sharpener earlier in 2022 and drove across the country with it. And on November 13th, 2022, he agreed that he broke into the house on King Road. and stabbed the four college students to death. Now nearly a year after Coburgers' guilty plea and sentencing, we're getting a look at the autopsy reports from Maddie, Kaylee, Ethan, and Zana. They paint a horrific picture

of what the four students endured as beyond the pale. The chief medical examiner for Spokane County, Dr. Vina Singh, performed the autopsies on all four students, and she was prepared to testify as an expert for the prosecution. Prosecutors wrote in an expert disclosure, it is expected Dr. Singh will testify that Kaylee Gonzalez, Zana Kronodal, and Madison Mogan endured a high degree of pain and or suffering prior to their deaths as a result of the injuries inflicted. It is expected Dr. Singh will testify Ethan Chapin also experienced a high degree of pain and or suffering prior to his death as a result of the injuries inflicted but to a lesser degree than the other decedents. And Dr. Singh was prepared to testify that the injuries inflicted

upon all four victims were consistent with a K-bar knife, the same type of knife owned by Brian K-Berger. Prosecutors wrote, Dr. Singh will provide her opinion that Gonsolvis's wounds are consistent with a single-edged and or double-edged knife being the source of the wounds. Dr. Singh will provide her opinion that the use of a K-bar full-size U.S. Marine Corps' Forces. fighting knife is consistent with the injuries observed. Dr. Singh made other findings regarding specific injuries that she found on Ethan Chapin. In addition, Dr. Singh will provide testimony regarding evidence that the knife used on Chapin showed indications that there was a blade guard. Dr. Singh will provide her opinion that Chapin's wounds are consistent with a single-edged

knife as the source of the wounds. Dr. Singh will provide her opinions that the use of a K-bar full-size U.S. Marine Corps fighting knife is consistent with the injuries observed. And there's much, much more to these reports, including information about the possibility that two knives were used. So I really wanted to get somebody with some great expertise to break down these autopsy reports, the expert findings, and I have no one better to do that than Joseph Scott Morgan. He is a forensic death investigator, also the host of the hit podcast Bodybags. Check it out. Joseph, thanks so much for coming on. I want your opinion, first of all, about these autopsy reports.

We didn't think we'd ever see these. They're sealed in the state of Washington. That's Spokane County conducted the autopsies. That's who Moscow contracts with. What is your opinion overall about the autopsy reports? Very thorough. Dr. Singh, you know, when I'm reading over these right now, and hadn't this gone on for a long time,

You know, and we, you know, it's like you said, Ingenet, you know, we didn't think that we would ever see these. I thought that maybe someday, but in this document, I was shocked, you know, when you reached out to me that we actually had them. But Dr. Singh has done a wonderful job, I think, in her assessment, our post-mortem assessment of the remains there at her facility. And this is the sign of a good autopsy report if a common person can sit down and re-through it and get an idea as to the nature of the injuries, the status of the individual, both in antimortem prior to death and post-mortem and laid out in such a way. because, you know, these reports, when you look at autopsy reports, they're not, these are not created for fellow physicians. They're created as an objective scientific report that has forensic value that if you go into court, when you're trying to explain this to a jury, and the jury doesn't have the same education as the pathologist, which is very specific, They can understand it.

And, you know, for me, reading over this, I think that Dr. Singh would have been formidable, okay, on the stand. She's been very, very thorough here. She's laid out these injuries in a way that we can truly understand. Since Brian Koeberger has pleaded guilty, I mean, he walked into court and said, yeah, I'm guilty. The judge straight up asked him, are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? And he said, yes. he said he did it and since that happened

you know in the last many months several weeks people have been coming out of the woodwork a defense expert Dr. Turvey said you know it had to be two killers and two weapons

and you know two knives essentially I interviewed Chris Whitcomb he wrote a book and he was citing all this stuff all these documents and things like that and worked with Dr. Turvey on this book, and they're convinced that Brian Koberger didn't do this. But I want to read to you something that Dr. Singh,

apparently one of her opinions that she was going to testify to had this case gone to trial. And I see where this two weapons, two killers thing, is coming from now. And we're going to pull this up on the screen. Dr. Singh will provide her opinion that Kronotel's wounds are consistent with a single-edged and-or double-edged knife being the source of the wounds.

In addition, the handle and or tip of the knife could account for the appearance of serration on some of kernodal's face wounds. Dr. Singh will opine that this serration could be caused by Kernodle fighting and or holding slash touching the knife and or hand that is holding the knife causing the injury. Dr. Singh will provide her opinions that the use of a K-bar full-size U.S. Marine Corps fighting knife is consistent with the injuries observed. That doesn't say that there were necessarily two knives used or two killers or two weapons. No, it doesn't. And for those of us that have worked in the medical legal field for our entire lives, we see injuries and we, you know,

particularly in a dynamic event like this, we understand that these things don't occur in a vacuum. Okay. You've got people that are reactive. You've got individuals. that are fighting back. You've got a perpetrator that is in the midst of a massacre. This is not something clinical like surgery. All right. So let's disabuse ourselves of this idea that, you know, you think that you can make an assessment

and arrive at a conclusion that definitively said that there are two perpetrators or multiple weapons because that's just not, That's not the reality. Now, it is the defense's job, okay? It is the defense's job to raise reasonable doubt, right? I mean, that's how our system works. But I think that when you begin to consider the nature of this knife that we're talking about, this weapon, this K-bar, this is a weapon of war, okay?

and it has the surfaces on this weapon are they're not static. In a sense, they are static, but what I'm saying is you've got a single edge. The blade kind of has a curve to the tip. You've got a blood groove in it. You've got a blunt side to it. Then you've got a handguard. You've also got a textured handle that is wrapped. with grooves in it.

Oh, and by the way, if you flip this knife on its end, the butt end of it can actually be used as a hammer. I urge anybody to take a look at this thing and see that it has multiple utility. That's why it's a military utility knife. Because the Marines, when the Marines developed this knife right before World War II, I think that it went into service, they knew that our guys that were fighting are going to need something that they can crack boxes open with,

all right, that they can pry things loose, they can actually chop things with it, if they're trying to create a fighting position. Oh, and by the way, they can actually do trench warfare with this thing. So just using the handle alone, if you're gripping the knife, you can actually punch with it like this. You can flip it over. You can hammer with it. You flip it over again. You can stab with it.

You can slice with it. You can parry if you've got an oncoming. And you think about what that scene probably looked like inside of that house. Bloodbath, to say the very least, none of this occurred in the vacuum. So if you're going to try to draw a conclusion, you're going to try to draw a conclusion that there's more than one. weapon involved. I think you've got some distance to go in order to prove that. And one weapon, one killer can use more than one weapon. I mean, it could have been a fist, even if it is the knife being used as a hammer, as a punching device, you still can do other

things. Yeah, yeah, that's possible. The individual could have brought another weapon with them. You know, their conclusion is, they're arriving at this conclusion. You know, we go back to the sheath, right? The sheet is found there in the bedroom. And, of course, that identifier is going to bring that back to the K bar, right? And granted, don't have the knife. You have to understand that. I don't know that we will ever have the knife or that they will ever have the knife, okay?

But you had the question that you have to ask is, is it possible? possible for a knife such as a K-bar knife that fits this sheath, all right? Is it possible for it to have been utilized in order to generate all of these insults to all four of these victims? Again, I go back to the word dynamic. You know, none of these kids necessarily stay put, okay, while this happens. you know, they've got a survival instinct that kicks in. You know, they're blocking, okay, they're reacting, they're reacting to pain. Every single time a knife plunges into a specific area of the body, unless an individual is dead,

you're going to have a pain center that fires, so they're going to twist, they're going to turn. They're, you know, they're going to gesticulate in any number of planes along the way. So they're being reactive in that sense. So it's not just like you have an individual that is just kind of there. They're not positioned like a paper target somewhere where you're driving a knife into them and they don't react. That's absurd. And of course, Zana, I mean, Zana, we know she was awake and fighting. We know that.

And she, you know, her autopsy report, or at least the summary of it, shows that she had 23, wounds to her scalp, face, and neck, seven to her chest and abdomen, you know, incised and puncture wounds of the back, I mean, lower extremities everywhere. I mean, this poor girl suffered so greatly trying to save her own life. I do want to move on now to Kaylee because a lot of people have made a lot about Kaylee's injuries and the severity of her injuries. She was in bed next to Maddie. They were best friends. You know, Maddie, of course, suffered greatly as well. But Kaylee had some injuries that people have pointed to, and one of those being, Dr. Singh was going to testify that there was an unknown

object placed over her mouth. She apparently also had a fixed retainer in her mouth at the time that she was sleeping and her teeth were were broken and kaley it says you know suffered you know scrapes on the nose and cheeks bruising around the eyes um it's just awful stuff and she also had that unknown object placed against her mouth is what the doctor said what what could you theorize that could have been i've held for some time that it could have very well have been the handle of the knife or the perpetrator's gripping of the knife as it's being placed in with enough force like this to thrust against and hold her in place with a knife for at least with enough force in order to generate this kind of insult and you know the injury is evidence that

you know that you've got this reactive event going on it creates a pattern there that apparently is in the anti-mortem states, not a post-mortem insult that she's sustained. And then you've got this devastation to her mouth where we've got loosened teeth, I think, we've got fractures of the facial bones. You know, and it's really, really indicative of how vicious this attack was. Now, was that, you know, there are any number, I guess, behaviors could look at this. and say, well, you know, maybe she was the target. And that's about as close as you're going to get. You're going to say, well, maybe she was the target.

I have no idea if she was the target. I have no idea who was, in fact, the target in that house. I think a lot of that stuff is speculative. But all you can do is return back to the injuries that were sustained in a brutal attack. We talked about Zana, you know, being reactive. Kaylee was, you know, essentially pinned in this location. And Lord only knows why the perpetrator, you know, decided to unleash hell on her specifically. But it was a destructive event.

You know, he's just absolutely wrecking her face with whatever instrument this is. I still hold to the fact that it's a K-bar. And it's being used. used not, it is being used as a sharp force weapon, but it's also being used as a blunting weapon or a blunt force weapon just over and over and over again. Because it takes, it takes a tremendous amount of force and kind of holding an individual pinning them in a static position like this so that you can have this structural disruption that was going on with her. Is it possible that Kaylee awoke during the attack on Maddie, since Maddie was closer to the outside of the bed?

And then that's something happened where she tried to fight back or something. And that's why we see the asphyxiation. Maybe she was stabbed in the chest first. And then she's, she's, she's, asphyxating because she's, then somebody's trying to hold something against her mouth. Is that a possibility? Yeah, yeah, it certainly is. If I remember correctly, too, they talked about, Dr. Singh had mentioned that there was dried foam that you see many times with,

if you think about like the head of a beer, okay, you have a, if you're in kind of respiratory distress, you'll produce this exudate that comes out like that. see it, you know, with many asphyxial-related deaths like that. And some of that can go to, you know, this kind of compression where you're holding an individual down. You're, you're blocking their ability for their chest to rise and fall, particularly if weight is being placed on it. You're also, you know, maybe holding her in place with an anchor hand, you know, like a sea clamp around the throat, like to squeeze in the throat for a period of time. Maybe, while a attack was raising on another area of the body.

You're, you know, you're covering the mouth. There's any number of ways of respiratory system can be compromised. And then not to mention, you're introducing a blade into the body as well. So the body is going to be reactive in that way. Yeah, I think there's a possibility she may have awakened. Maddie also suffered many stab wounds, particularly to her face. I mean, this is so disgusting, so sick. you know, poor Maddie, and she was very intoxicated.

She had a high BAC, 0.282. And, you know, it was also the doctor's opinion that her injuries were consistent with the K-bar knife. And it sounded like there was going to be some opinion that she didn't believe that Maddie had the ability to fight back. We had read that in some other documents. Yeah. Well, when you see, you think about Maddie's size, she's rather demean. right and then you think about this her BA level yeah I could see why dr. Singh would arrive potentially arrive at that conclusion you know because

Maddie would have been it's not really like a dream-like state but she you know at that point when your BA is that high and you've got someone attacking you the only thing that could kick in so that you could be further active would be an adrenaline rush. Well, if you don't have this awareness of it, she may have just laid there. We don't know. We don't know. Laure only knows, right? We have no idea. But yeah, I think that she could have been certainly, you know, as helpless as kid. It's just awful. Poor at least all these kids, but Maddie, just all of them. It's just awful. Finally, Ethan, it seemed like he suffered fewer stab wounds.

Dr. Singh was going to testify that Maddie Zana and Kaylee suffered greatly and suffered great pain before they died. Ethan as well, but not to the extent that the others did. Dr. Singh found that he had four stab wounds to the face and neck, a stab wound to the upper chest, six incised wounds of the upper extremities, and then six stab and insized wounds of the lower extremities. And then there was associated injuries, including perforations of the jugular vein, subclavian vein, and subclavian artery. I mean, those injuries alone, jugular and subclavian artery, artery, I mean, that would be instantly fatal, wouldn't it? Pretty close. As a matter of fact, we know that the, just to give folks kind of a point of reference, we know that the Courtney Clinic case is, is kind of ramping up right now.

And one of the issues in that particular case is that Toby, the victim, his subcliffe, has been nicked, and he's a very big man, right? And he, and that's a single injury. And he just kind of faded. So if you've got multiple insults to these structures along here, and so that folks know that with subclav in particular, we're talking about subclavicular, which means beneath the clavicle, our collarbone, if you can feel it right here. This major vessel runs through here for years and years.

That's where medical professionals would set up what was referred to as a central line. so that you could have like a port would be right here, so that you could eject meds immediately. They've gotten away from that now to a great degree, but this would get it directly into the system. Why is that? Because it's a major vessel. And so when this is clipped,

and then you've also got the jugular vein that is clipped as well, those structures in and of themselves will make somebody fade very, very quickly. Awful, awful. they were butchered. There's no other way to describe this. I mean, they were just massacred.

And it's shocking to me in some ways that they went for the plea deal, that the state were willing to do this. But I can see it on both sides. I can see why the gonsolvases are still so upset and wanted the death penalty in this case after reading these autopsy reports. Yeah, there's no measure that you can really take it, take on behalf of the families. And yeah, I understand, you know, because, you know, even,

even from my perspective, I read a lot of autopsy reports, have read them over the years. And even by my standards, this, this is the brutality involved in this case, you know, exceeds, exceeds some of my understanding, you know, because it's like you look at it, you look at it, as it's written down. But there is no way that anyone will ever fully appreciate. And I hope no one ever does what went on in that house that night relative to the brutality that was exacted on these kids. You can't really take the measure of it.

I mean, obviously, Dr. Singh has done a lovely job here. If you can use that term, very professional, probably is a more appropriate term. ordered. She was able to sit back in her environment and kind of, you know, contemplate this and think about it and kept it in very succinct order. That's why I think that she would have been one hell of a witness to put on the stand. And I can understand why families don't feel as though that justice was served here. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's like no appeals, you know, at least you have some sort of,

resolution here. There was no, you know, no risk. You have a guilty plea, but I get it. No alacution at all, which I think is probably from my perspective of covering a lot of cases, it's probably the most dissatisfying part. And it, my satisfaction doesn't really matter. But I'm just, you know, in very broad strokes, I always go back to BTK. You know, BTK was compelled to allocut in court. And he, he, you know, he's, you know, did. If you've never seen that, it's one of the most chilling things you can watch where he goes case by case. And in this case, I think that that allocation was certainly warranted. I don't understand why it could be leveraged that way unless they're thinking about returning to something

in the future. I have no idea what that might be. But I think a proffer, I've been saying since the beginning, a proffer require him to sit down with investigators and answer some questions. before you're willing to take the death penalty off the table. Yeah. I know why the family still want answers. I totally get it. Joseph Scott Morgan, thank you so much. It's my pleasure, Ingenet.

Thanks for having me. The parents of Kaley Gonzalez have been quoted as saying recently, they want to talk to Brian Coburger. They want to know why he killed their daughter and inflicted such brutality on her. They've also created a foundation in her memory. It's called Murder Has a Name. They want to help other families identify the murderers of their loved ones through advanced DNA testing.

Kayla Gonzalez would have celebrated her birthday on June 8th. She would be 25 years old. Instead, now she is forever 21. You can read the full autopsy reports on our new app, Law and Crime Plus. Just log on and you'll find them in our case files. 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 day. time.