Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - New Bryan Kohberger Selfie, Knife on Full Display in New Filings

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Prosecutors claim accused quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger bought a Ka-Bar knife and sheath on Amazon months before he murdered four University of Idaho students. They've also revealed new photos of a white car captured near the crime scene along with a selfie they claim Kohberger took hours after the murders. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes over all of the new details in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you or someone you know have been diagnosed with bladder cancer or other cancers after prolonged exposure of hair color, visit https://forthepeople.com/hair to submit a claim in 8 clicks or less!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Philip Dubé  https://www.instagram.com/philip.dube/CRIME 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.

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. Prosecutors in Brian Koberger's case are firing back at his attorney's request to keep some evidence out of the trial. And they're revealing new photos to back up testimony about bushy eyebrows and a white car at the crime scene. I look at all of it and why Brian Koberger's Amazon account could be important to both sides. Did he buy a K-bar knife on the site? Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy, and I just want to let you know you can now watch and listen to Crime Fix on Spotify. So please check us out there. Prosecutors in Brian Koberger's murder case and his lawyers are battling it out on paper over what evidence the jury will hear at his trial when it begins later this summer. They're fighting over everything from Koberger's Amazon account and his purchase of a K-bar knife to a surviving roommate's testimony, text messages, the 911

call, and whether Koberger should face the possibility of the death penalty because he has autism spectrum disorder. And the defense is shedding new light on the timeline of the calls and texts between the surviving roommates. Brian Koberger, he maintains he's innocent. A prior judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, Ethan Chapin, and Zanna Kernodle in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022. All four had been stabbed to death in the house on King Road near the University of Idaho campus in Moscow. Prosecutors say Brian Koberger drove his white Hyundai Elantra to the house that morning, circled the area a few times before he broke into the house and stabbed all four victims. Police say a K-bar knife sheath like the one I have right here was found next to Maddie Mogan on her bed and the underside of the snap had Brian Koberger's DNA on it.

That's a major piece of circumstantial evidence. Koberger has asked Judge Hippler to not allow the prosecution to present evidence of his Amazon click history to the jury. That would show what he's browsed, put in his cart and even purchased. His attorneys argue the Amazon account was a shared family account and the click history could be influenced by things like AI. But the state says the records are clear. Prosecutors write, a K-Bar knife sheath with a USMC logo was found next to one of the victims at 1122 King Road. The defendant's DNA was found on the K-bar knife sheath found on scene. Applying the test for relevancy, first, Koberger's click activity,

which shows a purchase of a K-bar knife and sheath before the homicides, makes it more probable than it would be without the evidence that the K-bar sheath found at the crime scene was Brian Koberger's. Second, Koberger's click activity after the homicides makes it more probable than it would be without the evidence that Koberger had a reason to search for a K-Bar knife and sheath after the homicides. These facts are of consequence to determining whether Brian Koberger committed the homicides at 1122 King Road, the central question before the jury. This evidence is clearly relevant. So right there,

prosecutors are finally confirming what has long been suspected and rumored, that Brian Koberger bought a K-Bar knife and sheath on Amazon. And in discussing the search warrant served on Amazon, prosecutors talk about when Koberger bought that K-Bar knife. This included temporal limitations based on the officer's investigation, which limited the search from March 20th, 2022 through March 30th, 2022, time it was known Brian Koberger purchased a K-Bar knife with sheath and sharpener from Amazon.com. And November 1st, 2022 through December 6th, 2022. Time right before and after the homicides. Koberger's entire click history items not related to knives and accessories was not relevant.

This is a Morgan & Morgan legal alert. Emerging reports reveal that hair color products may not come with clear warnings about potential health risks. If you or someone you know frequently handles hair color chemicals and have been diagnosed with bladder cancer or other cancers, Morgan & Morgan is here to fight on your behalf. Scan the QR code on your screen or go to ForThePeople.com slash share to start a claim now. So prosecutors are saying right there that Brian Koberger bought a K-Bar knife and sharpener from Amazon nearly eight months before the murders when he was living in Pennsylvania. There's also a footnote in the prosecutor's response. The defendant argues that Amazon's recommendation system influences what

users see and click on, but this purported use of AI technology is not relevant. Even if an algorithm might suggest certain products to a customer, the algorithm would not cause a customer to repeatedly and over the course of several days browse webpages relating to K-Bar knives, sharpeners, and sheaths. Now, it will be interesting to see how the defense responds to this. Will the defense say that Brian Koberger indeed owned a K-Bar knife and sheath, but someone took it? Or that he had one and that's how his DNA got on it? Did he sell it to somebody? Did he lose it? Who knows? Did the police ever find a K-bar or packaging from one at his apartment? Now to the issue of the white car at the crime scene. A couple of weeks ago,

I showed you these screen grabs taken from a camera next door to the King Road house that showed a white car approaching the house. The defense said an FBI analyst shouldn't be allowed to testify that the car was a Hyundai Elantra because the analyst didn't use the camera at the house next to the crime scene to ID the car. Now prosecutors are responding and saying that's not really true. The state included a map in its filing that shows the various locations and times that the white sedan was recorded by video cameras around the crime scene beginning at 3.28 a.m. The murders are believed to have occurred between 4 a.m. and 4.25 a.m. The defense says the videos don't show a continuous route, but the state says that's all right because they have a lot of different videos of the car.

Prosecutors included this exhibit showing images of a white sedan approaching and leaving the crime scene next to a Hyundai Elantra made between the years of 2011 and 2016. Assistant Prosecutor Ashley Jennings writes, The state's expert, Anthony Immel, is allowed to testify at trial in accordance with the state's expert disclosure, which includes the opinion that the vehicle captured on the 1112 King Road video shares similar class characteristics to a fifth-generation Hyundai Elantra between 2014 and 2015. The defense is also asking Judge Hippler to bar the surviving roommate, D.M., from describing the man she saw walking through the King Road house that morning

as having bushy eyebrows. Koberger's attorneys have said that D.M. is unreliable because she had been drinking and was sleepy and told police she didn't know what was real or a dream. But prosecutors write that her descriptions were remarkably consistent and that she was traumatized. And detectives told her to focus on what she knew was true. Prosecutors write, defendant argues that evidence of bushy eyebrows is not relevant. That is not the case. DM is the only living person who saw the person responsible for the four homicides at 1122 King Road on November 13, 2022. Her description of this individual, including characteristics such as bushy eyebrows, has the tendency to make a fact, i.e. the identity of the killer, more probable than it would be without the evidence. This fact is of consequence to determining whether Brian Koberger was the same male DM saw that night, the person responsible for the homicides, the central question before the jury. This evidence is relevant. The prosecution

says DM couldn't identify the man because he was completely covered with the exception of his nose and eyes. And get this, prosecutors included a photo of Brian Koberger that they took from his phone, a selfie that was taken at 10.31 a.m. That's a little more than six hours after police say the murders were committed. Koberger is standing in a bathroom in front of a mirror, grinning and giving a thumbs up, wearing wireless earbuds. A shower is behind him and you can see a little bit of a shower curtain. His eyebrows appear full, to say the least, and are featured prominently in the photo. Prosecutors also included a copy of Brian Koberger's driver's license from Pennsylvania

that again shows him with full eyebrows. He got a Washington State driver's license and plates five days after the murders. Prosecutors also cited Diem's police interviews in which she said the thing she remembered the most clearly about the man in the house was the bushy eyebrows. Prosecutors write, his arguments are without merit. As shown above, Diem gave consistent descriptions of the male she saw at the time in question. One of those consistent descriptions is that the male had bushy eyebrows. This description is clear. It is not confusing and therefore will not confuse the jury. The fact that this description may or may not implicate defendant is not a reason to

keep the fact from the jury's consideration. Brian Koberger has also gone back to Judge Hippler asking to strike the death penalty, saying he has autism spectrum disorder and it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make him eligible for the death penalty. But prosecutors say the motion should be denied. They write, defendant has no plausible argument that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of the death penalty based on his ASD, his IQ of 119 is far above the required IQ of 70 or lower. His IQ testing prior to age 18, while lower, is still above 70 and is admitted by his own expert, an underestimate of his ability from what we now know. Wow, so Brian Koberger's own experts say he has an above average IQ and the state says Koberger's own experts say he is able to assist in his own defense. He's certainly not incompetent. Prosecutors write, defendant's

ASD does not result in cognitive impairments. He was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder level one without accompanying intellectual or language impairment. His type of ASD is characterized by severe and sustained impairments in social interaction, but not by cognitive ability. His examination revealed no evidence of a formal thought disorder or thought disorganization, and no evidence of difficulty understanding the examiner. While defendant's ASD may cause behavioral impairments, such as impulsive tendencies, nothing in his report suggests such impulsive tendencies manifest through physical aggression or that his lack of impulse control had any connection to the crimes with which he is

charged. Now, level one is the highest functioning level of autism. The prosecution goes on to write one of defendant's own experts found that he is highly intelligent and has a factual understanding of the proceedings against him, including the penalty he is possibly facing. That is an unsurprising conclusion, given that his ASD did not prevent him from graduating with a master's degree in criminal justice in January 2023 with a GPA of 4.0. And I think that was a typo. He actually graduated in January 2022. So there is a lot to talk about, a lot going on with this case. And I want to bring in Philip Dubé. He has worked as court appointed counsel in California. So he has represented people like Brian Koberger in high profile cases. So, Philip, talk to me a little bit about

what your thoughts are on the state's response to this whole argument that Brian Koberger should not be eligible for the death penalty because he has autism. The state says, well, guess what? He has an IQ of 119. He's above average in intelligence. And your own expert says, basically, he's he's not as as odd as the defense would like to make him out to be that that he may not recent pronouncement of constitutional law regarding the competence, if you will, of any criminal defendant to be executed. If they are, in fact, intellectually disabled, the law says that it would be cruel and unusual punishment. And we don't just rely simply on the word of prosecutors to say, well, no, he doesn't fit the definition. So therefore he should be death eligible. No, you'll hold an Atkins hearing pursuant to Atkins versus Virginia, at which time all the doctors take the stand and the prosecution can call their own experts to rebut whatever it is that the defense is saying. But the bottom line is when you cut through it

all, there is a difference between being on the autism spectrum and being intellectually disabled. They call it a spectrum for a reason, meaning you can be profoundly intellectually disabled and all the way up to high functioning, but yet still be socially awkward. Maybe a little quirky, have behavioral oddities. But does that necessarily mean that constitutionally it would be cruel and unusual to give you the wall or what we call in Florida, old sparky, the electric chair or the needle? No, that's not what Atkins was intended to proscribe. So I think at a minimum, there should be a hearing for the court to decide if he's death eligible. Let's get now, Philip, to the big news, some of the big news. I mean, it's all big news, but the knife sheath and the knife.

The prosecutors are now confirming after all of this time, they're saying that Brian Koberger bought a K-bar knife and a K-Bar knife sheath and a sharpener, a sharpener on Amazon in March of 2022, a full almost eight months prior to these homicides. I'm assuming they believe the theory is that he traveled cross country with this item and then carried out these homicides. They, of course, believe that they've recovered the sheath with his DNA on this underside, snappy, buttony part. The defense is challenging this. They don't want this click activity in. Of course, they don't want it in. But the state is saying it's reliable. So your thoughts? Well, first of all, the records were lawfully obtained, number one. The real question

is, though, the scope of admissibility. In other words, how far back can you go with clicks, with his orders, all the deliveries, everything else, and his searches for these items on the website, how far back you can go, how far forward you can go. But I think the argument that they made in their motion to get it excluded, which frankly was intelligent. Okay. I'll give them that, um, is that it could constitute several layers of the inadmissible hearsay that, and also it would violate the rule of completeness. The rule of completeness says that in order for you to have a full context of anybody's online behavior or not even online, it could just be during a conversation, during an interview with the police, you need the entire input, the entire conversation, all of the entries in their totality.

Otherwise, it has a tendency to mislead the jury. Now, where we rarely see it is in the collection of raw data. You know, usually raw data is just that. It's not a statement from an individual that can be taken out of context. But on the other hand, if you look at, for example, text messages, email threads, if you don't present the entire thread, then it could very well be that something is taken out of context. And it kind of lends to misinterpreting whatever the typer was doing when they were doing the entries. So I kind of understand why the defense is moving to

exclude it. And if they're not going to present all of it or if they don't have all of it, then the remedy should be exclusion so that there is no tendency to mislead the jury. And I can just tell you, based on my experience, that this judge is going to allow every lick of it in. He is not going to exclude it, but the defense is still obliged to try to get it excluded. But Philip, the state is saying he bought a K-bar knife and they haven't said whether they found it or not and that he was looking at him afterwards, too. I mean, that's a really bad fact for the defense. And then you've got his DNA, the state saying on on the underside of the defense. And then you've got his DNA, the state saying on the underside of the snap. So yikes. I mean, how do you counter that as the defense? Are you going to say that somebody

took his K-bar or he sold it to some guy in a parking lot? He didn't want the thing anymore. I mean, how do you counter that as a defense attorney? It's devastating. OK, but let's look at it temporally. If this thing was ordered months prior, it's not as if that something was in the works or being planned immediately preceding the murders. Lord only knows where that K-bar knife and the outer scabbard or the sheath has been since the time of order and the time of the crime. Moreover, I'm not sure that there's any evidence in the Amazon records that the item was even delivered to Brian Koberger. I would want to make sure that there is evidence that it was delivered to wherever he lived

and that he actually received it. And they need to corroborate that somehow. Because if you think about it, it's just some items, we call it a movable object in forensics, that can make its way through the stream of commerce and get into the hands of anybody. What this evidence does not prove is whether or not he inflicted those stab wounds.

The mere presence of the sheath and the presence of the DNA on the snap does not prove by any stretch that he delivered those coup de grace to those four students. It just doesn't prove it. At most, what it might prove is that he has been to the house at most, but it doesn't prove that he is the actual culprit. Very interesting. Now, let's go on to the bushy eyebrows. You know, the state is coming back hard, defending DM, the surviving roommate,

and her contention that the man dressed in all black, head to toe, she could only see his nose and his eyes and the eyebrows. She is saying that he had bushy eyebrows. They're saying this was consistent. They're pouring cold water all over what the defense is saying. And they said this should be allowed in. You know, no questions asked.

So your thoughts on the state's response to all this? They say she is competent. She was traumatized and that the jury should hear from her. I actually think that the prosecution's argument is well taken. I do. Now, I will say this. There's two bodies of law that deal with the admissibility of identifications of this type. There are the types where the police are interviewing the victim or the witness and they're being asked to identify the person, maybe in a live lineup or maybe in a photo array. Or maybe they do what's called an in-person show up, where they actually have a suspect in handcuffs out in the field. And they just say, is that the guy? And they say, yeah, that's him. That is all deemed to be a suggestive identification procedure. And there are

ways to attack it on due process grounds. However, when you have a situation where an ID is being made or a description is being made independent of law enforcement involvement, the test really is, is there independent reliability to the identification? And the problem here, if you think about it, is she had a menagerie, if you will, of photos or sketches or drawings in her room with faces of bushy eyebrows, with bushy eyebrows on it. And I think by definition, it is suggesting and conditioning her into looking at everybody as having bushy eyebrows and fixating on the eyes, almost to a fault. It's almost pathological, if you will. And the question then becomes, is this type of outside conditioning reliable when you're trying to give a description or an identification of a suspect? And that's the test. And I do think that the judge does have jurisdiction to exclude it. And if the judge doesn't, then obviously it's going to be subject to attack and cross-examination because the young lady had been drinking. Her thoughts may have been cloudy. She still may have been the person inside the house, she was already three sheets to the wind

and Lord knows how much and what, if anything, she drank at the time. So it calls into question the independent reliability of the identification. Now the state contends that she gave four or five different prior statements that were all consistent with one another describing this person. So if she gave prior consistent statements, I think the judge is more apt to allow it all in debits. Philip, your thoughts on that selfie that the state included. It was taken at 10.31 a.m. on November 13th of 2022. This is, you know, a little more than six hours after they say the homicides were committed. You know, Brian Koberger says he's innocent.

He didn't do this, but you've got the thumbs up. He's looking in the mirror and obviously the eyebrows are there. They're saying, look, here's a picture of him from that day. So, you know, you could reasonably conclude he had bushy eyebrows. You know what comes to mind when I saw that selfie? It sent a message of catch me if you can. You know, do you remember that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio? He was sort of like working

with the FBI and catching fellow bank robbers because he was a former robber himself. At least his character was. And Catch Me If You Can is sort of the catchphrase. And the look in his eyes with that thumb up is sort of giving the one finger salute to Idaho. Like, you'll never find me. You'll never know it was me. And instead, he's just looking all refreshed in that photo with almost like a death-like pallor.

When you look at his skin, he does have a look of death. But I will say that legally, I don't know how that photo is relevant, if we're honest. What does that photo really prove? What? That maybe he's photogenic or that he's not photogenic or that he's ready to start his day? You know, that he's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, no pun intended, with the brows? I don't think that it proves, you know, that he's bright eyed and bushy tailed, no pun intended with the brows. I don't think that it proves anything except to show that he was alive on that day and that he took a photo of himself hours after the murder. So I don't even know why it should even come into evidence.

If anything, it's just sort of a unseemly and unsavory display of him that bears no relation to the crime. Interesting. Well, it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. And we're going to keep following this. Lots to talk about. Philip Dubé, thank you so much, as always. Have a great one. You too. Now, remember when I told you about the surviving roommates, DM and BF, texting each other right after police said the homicides occurred. You can see the text messages on your screen. Well, the defense has said those texts lack context and they've provided

more information about the roommates' interactions, including BF actually calling DM at 4.19 a.m. and then DM calling the roommates and no one answering. The surviving roommates were also accessing social media sites like Instagram and Snapchat as early as 4.34 a.m. Now, were they trying to contact the roommates? We don't know. We'll find out at trial. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ian Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.