Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Astronomical DNA Match Places Bryan Kohberger Inside Murder House

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

The likelihood of the DNA found on a knife sheath found inside the Idaho student murder house being someone other that Bryan Kohberger is astronomical. An STR  (short tandem repeat) analysis shows the suspect's  DNA is a “statistical match.”   Documents state “the STR profile is at least 5.37 octillion times more likely to be seen if (the) Defendant is the source than if an unrelated individual randomly selected from the general population is the source.”  An octillion is equal to a number followed by 27 zeros. Join Nancy Grace, forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan and investigator Chris McDonough for this lively discussion, See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, a bombshell in the state's case against quadruple slave defendant Brian Koberger, charged in the incredibly brutal murders of four vibrant young college students in Idaho. We learn a statistical match unlike any I've ever seen has been made from Brian Koberger to the bloody knife sheath, DNA on the knife sheath found at the murder scene. Not necessarily blood. We don't know where the DNA came from. Was it touch DNA? Was it blood? Was it from sweat? I don't know that. Is it epithelial cells? I don't know. But I know that there is DNA on a knife sheath found at the crime scene, not just at the crime

scene where the four students were slaughtered as they were getting ready for bed, in their bed, some of them. But it's found in the bedroom of Maddie Mogan, and not just in her bedroom, but partially under her body and partially under her comforter, her bedspread. What does it mean? We also know this DNA match was obtained through a fairly routine test called STR, short tandem repeat analysis. That's been used forever. What does this mean for the prosecution? I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for being with me and joining me two experts in their fields. First of all, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, who has an incredible criminal justice department.

Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and host of a hit series, Body Bags, with Joseph Scott Morgan. Also with me, renowned detective who has investigated over 300 homicides, director of the Cold Case Foundation. You can find him on YouTube at his channel on The Interview Room, Chris McDonough. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Joe Scott, just jump in. This is a match that is 5.37 octillion times likely to be from Brian Koberger than any other person on the planet. Joe Scott, 5.37 octillion, that's 27 zeros. That's more people than live on the planet right now or that have ever lived on planet Earth that we know of. Astronomical number.

And when you compare that to and what this is, is the probability that it could be anybody other than. Brian Kober is what the prosecution is saying with this test that they have revealed. And that's pretty amazing because this is, I don't know, Nancy, I think that this is one of the most robust things that has dropped in the news cycle since all of this started so long ago that we really have something to hang our hat on here just from a mathematical and scientific standpoint. And you know what's really cool about all of this nancy they played this really close to the vest and when we first got that indication that dna some type of dna as you framed it had been left on that snap uh for for this knife um you know we knew that something was up at that

point in time and we didn't we don't really know what the nature of that is you'd mention epithelial skill uh skin cells which is what we get dna uh touch dna from which is kind of a partial strand uh we don't know if it's a wet sample we don't really know but what they did and this is the beauty of it is that they really they they identified it, they developed a profile off of that, and then they compared it to what they knew at the home in Pennsylvania. Remember when they went back to the trash and they did the familial DNA with, they think his dad probably through a genealogical match. Then they looped Nancy all the way back around to him. So they've completed the circle, haven't they?

You know, from just a legal standpoint. Hold on just a moment. Guys, you're hearing Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, speaking. And as you all know, all you legal eagles, Koberger's father flew out to Washington State University, which is, you know, 10 minutes away from the murder scene, even though it's in Idaho, just across the state line, to drive Koberger home for Thanksgiving

break. We believe he was staked out the whole time. When Koberger gets home to his parents' home in the Poconos, they're being watched. And at some point, police go and retrieve trash, abandoned trash, which is completely constitutional. Once you throw something out, anybody can get it, including the police. And off of that trash, the police identified DNA from the father, Koberger's father. And that DNA showed that only the biological son of that DNA donor could be the donor on the knife sheath. Only the biological son of Koberger's father could be the donor of the DNA on the knife sheath at the murder scene. It had to be Brian Koberger because he's the only bio son. Once they had that, you just heard Joe

Scott Morgan say they circle back. What does he mean by that? Once they identified Koberger through his father's DNA, after the arrest and pursuant to warrant, they obtain a buccal or buccal swab, which is simply a brush of cotton, like a Q-tip, in your cheek. And that's where they get this 1 in 5.37 octillion likelihood that it is Koeberger. This is not just a match with the father taken from the trash. They circle back, as Joe Scott Morgan put it, and get his, Koeberger's DNA from his saliva, and it's an incredible astronomical match. Now, you mentioned, Joe Scott, and I'm going to have you carry on where you left off, but you mentioned a wet sample.

If you could explain what you mean by a wet sample of epithelial DNA. Right. So when we're thinking about a wet sample, one of the things that comes to mind, for instance, is like a deposition or a deposit of, say, like a blood droplet. And we're not talking about blood droplets that may have come from the victims. Let's put that to the side. We're talking about something that may have been generated by him, by the accused, by co-burder. So we have blood, we have saliva, and also we have semen. What about sweat?

Yes, possibly. Did you say? Sweat. Wait, repeat that again. Sweat, perspiration. Sweat, perspiration, B.O. for lack of a better term. Right. And you can get droplets of sweat that would also contain these DNA strands in them as well. You know, when I have a thought, I have to get it out right then or it's gone forever. You know, this reminds me of and I don't know what happened to Chris McDonough. I've never known him.

He's uncharacteristically silent here. But do you guys remember making a murder? Stephen Avery, who totally committed murder, by the way, he murdered Teresa Hallback. I don't care what anybody says. Do you remember his DNA was found on multiple places on her car that he had hidden in his backyard with trees and stuff limbs on top of it his dna as i recall jackie will you check was found on the ignition steering wheel in different parts of her car can't you just imagine him after he's raped her and murdered her and burned her in a fire pit in the backyard?

Friends and relatives say they saw him stirring a fire pit until the early morning hours, a bonfire. And the studs off her Daisy Fuentes jeans were found in that bonfire, by the way. Can't you just imagine him trying to hide, cover his tracks, cranking up her car and moving it to the back end of his salvage yard, sweating, hunched over the wheel, thinking, how the hell am I going to get rid of this car? And sweating. And that sweat, that DNA was linked to him. Why else would he be in her car? Same thing here, sweat. That's just an example I thought of, Joe Scott.

I mean. Well, yeah, and I have to believe, Nancy, that with this attack, I think you're right on the money because this is going to be a fevered event. And what I mean by that is that when all is said and done and we've learned everything that happened tragically. Oh, wait. Key and key chain. Good get, Jackie, on the key and key chain. So he's sweating as he's trying to crank that car up.

And now when you said a fevered event, McDonough, Chris McDonough, did you hear that? A fevered event is the way Joe Scott said it. A frenzy, a hysteria, a murderous hysteria. And you know he was sweating. And I wonder if that is the DNA taken off the knife. That or epithelial blood skin cells nancy to dovetail into what doc is saying what you your point there is you know we i think we all remember that this guy was is so methodical yeah and as he goes into this situation it's a very controlled emotional event for him initially and as these guys get into this when

coberger specifically if he's our guy which it sounds like he is now i mean that you're going to have to go to another uh world to try to find a dna map another planet yeah literally and you Yeah, literally. And, you know, talk about a force multiplier. And so I can envision this guy. It's so personal for him. Remember, we talked earlier, all of us, about, you know, this is a very, you know, thought out crime. And the fact that he was studying criminology, the fact that he had mentors, through his professor and the mandatory reading type of books, he was trying to model himself after one of these individuals who are serial killer potential in the making here. And then to find this mistake is a crushing blow to him. But at the same time, during the commission of this act, the crime, I think he may have even, I was talking to Dr. Gary Bricado,

and Gary thought, did he take his gloves off? And that in and of itself was a mistake because he had to make it more personal. You know, he had to make it, you know, so brutal, so traumatic for the victims. That brought him this, you know, power and control feeling. And then to look back now and realize, you know, the significance of the minutia snap DNA match. I just think it's fascinating that they nailed him on this thing with that so far. And, you know, what's going through his head? What's going through his mind?

I can tell you what's going through his head. Why the hell did I leave that knife sheath at the murder scene? That's what's going through his head. And I still wish I could have been in that car, that white Elantra as he's taking as long as your cue at his route, which, you know, guys guys I drove and I had to practically stop the car Jackie remember I told you had to stop the car because it was so dark and I mean, I've still got 2020 and 2018 right here, but when I would be met on a two lane and there were a lot of

Well, there weren't a lot of cars at all, but semis, 18-wheelers would be coming that way, coming toward me. I would have to practically pull off the road because it was so dark, and all I could see were their lights coming right at our car. I just wondered where along that circuitous route he realized, oh, hell, where's the knife sheath? I'm betting it's when he got rid of the knife crime stories with Nancy Grace I don't know when it hit him that he left the knife sheath,

but I want to circle back on something that Chris McDonough just said. Guys, you can find Chris on the interview room. That's where I found him. And that was a great day for me on YouTube. Joe Scott, Chris just brought up a really good point. Gloves. Because you know this guy, Koberger, had everything planned out. And you know what?

Just watching his colleague on her home security system, watching her watch TV and do the dishes or whatever else, walk around half naked, that just wasn't doing it for him anymore. So it leads to these murders. You know, he planned it out, Joe Scott. If he wore gloves, that at least begs the question, how did he leave DNA on the knife sheath? Well, how about all the other times he had opened up the knife sheath? And I understand it was on the, not button, the snap where you shut the knife sheath. And I understand it was on the not button, the snap

where you shut the knife sheath. Yeah, it's adjacent to the snap. And look, if he's and again, this is all speculation on my part, but if he's sitting there fantasizing about this and he's thinking about one thing to do with any kind of weapon.

Oh dear Lord, if he's fantasizing about it while he's holding the knife it could be sperm why did you put that thought in my head well it wasn't my intention you went there i didn't go there i'm following the truth and i don't care what it is or where it leads me my thought is he's practicing with it because it goes to muscle memory he's fantasizing about this. And if he's flipping that clasp on there, Nancy, you'll have multiple touches. Then you get into the gloves, and then you put the gloves on. Maybe he tried it with the gloves. Who knows? And the gloves, if they ever recovered those, again, that would be great sourcing because what happens with latex

gloves? I can tell you from a person that you're speaking to right now that has spent literally thousands upon thousands of hours wearing latex gloves they're filled with your sweat as well so yeah that's a really good point it makes your hands sweat yeah if you go back to that and you really think about if he took those gloves off in the commission of this crime his hands would just be it the contact that you would leave behind yeah it would be because everybody knows what plastic rubber feels like you know if you're in a high humidity it creates this really elevated level of humidity contained within that environment. You're dripping with the sweat. That's a pause for deposition. But I think the biggest thing for me, Nancy, is the fact that, you know, you mentioned that the sheath was found beneath the comforter and adjacent to this child's leg in the bed.

This almost has a dramatic thought to it, you know, where he's in the bed. And, Nancy, I still hold, as I've held all these months, that he crawled into the bed with them. That's the only way I think you could probably facilitate this, where he is on top of these girls attacking them. And it's a real control kind of event going on if he did this, where he's stabbing both of them. Because how do you access both of them?

They're adjacent to one another in the same bed. He's in the bed. He's in full fever at this point in time. He leaves the sheath behind. plays out here at some point then we we need to really be thinking about how far his fantasies were going in relationship to you know is there a higher sexual component to this okay could you just be straightforward what are you trying to say chris mcdonough well i mean if if he's this if kohlberger goes under those sheets for for an example, that we're talking about here as a hypothetical, then he has played this out in his mind, you know, almost like, you know, Ted Bundy or BTK, you know, they would sketch things out. And then, of course, when the fantasy, you know, would or something to that effect that you know doc is

you know thinking through here then he has really gone into a deeper level of uh fantasy and so i that's where the electronics is going to tell us a lot about you know the depth, you know, the depth of, you know, sexual content, potentially, that they may have, because he is living through that vicariously. And then now the real thing comes along, and it goes down, but it wasn't quite what he had anticipated. And so they try to get closer post-mortem, potentially, to the victim to bring that, you know, that thrill back, for lack of a better term. And that puts him in a whole different category of, you know, being very, very dangerous had he not been captured. Just thinking through everything you're saying, and I'm thinking back to the DNA,

which we've just learned is a 1 in a 5.37 octillion likelihood that it's anybody but Koeberger, which has Joe Scott Morgan and Chris McDonoughough pointed out i guess you'd have to go to another planet to find somebody else that might have that match what type of dna is it is it blood is it sweat is it epithelial which is the skin transfer that the skin cells that you can't even see that you leave behind every time you touch anything. And, of course, I believe epithelial cells can be transmitted through bodily fluid, such as urine, and I assume sweat as well. Joe Scott Morgan?

Yeah, and what happens is those cells literally slough off, and they'll co-mingle with, as you mentioned, these other fluids in the body, and they can be transferred over. Nancy, I'd like to interject one thing here that has been kind of, I don't know, it's been needling me all along. One of the themes that has run through this whole case is this idea to access to these poor victims in that house. And people have made a lot. Well, he could have come into the house before,

and all of a sudden the parties and all that stuff. And I really hope that within the environment of that home that the investigators have gone into kind of hidden spaces like closets and really done sampling areas in there for any kind of DNA, foreign DNA that may have been in there, particularly with closets. Because if the perpetrator in this case was a peeper, was an observer, they may have been bold enough to go into those areas in order to watch. We've heard about electronics that Chris mentioned just a second ago to surveil the area, but what, just what if an individual has gone into a closet, they've sat in there, they've had sexual fantasies in that closet, maybe they're what we refer to as panty snippers, those sorts of people, and they're leaving or taking away with them something,

and then all of a sudden it's just not enough any longer, and they have to kick it up to the next level. I hope that they've searched those areas for potential deposition and DNA. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know what I also wonder in that vein, Joe Scott and Chris McDonough, when we have heard that there is evidence the defendant, Brian Koeberger, had been at the crime scene in the past, had driven by it, scouted it. I believe the number 11 times was thrown out. Where was he? Was he sitting in his car? Had he gotten out of his car? Does the cell phone data show that he was closer to the home, in the home? I'm not buying into the fact that he had been in the home prior to the murders or that he had not.

I need to know more evidence to determine that, but there's no doubt in my mind he had spied on them intensely. If his cell phone is showing that he was there up to at least 11 times, obviously he was not secreting his cell phone away or turning it off or putting it in airplane mode, as we believe he did the night of the murders. How close did he get to the home on those 11 occasions? What about it, Chris McDonough? You know, the point that doctors made, the fact that he may have been thinking about getting into that house and

potentially, you know, hopefully the authorities had checked, you know, those areas that he, you know, brought out. But I do believe that just the surveillance, the closeness to that house, he would try to get as close as he could possibly get. And that may just be sitting in the back in that upper area, Nancy, where you hung out and you felt that environment. When I stood back there, I was struck by how close it was to those back windows of the girls' rooms. And the fact that he potentially could have seen into the residence at various times if they would have left the blinds open or if they'd just come walking out onto the back patio, that in of itself, like a hunter, brings a thrill that is indescribable when the fantasy is playing out that the next step is you're going to be mine. And so if we think about, you know, when somebody goes out and buys

a tag during hunting season, they go out and they sit in a tree, you know, they mark their territory, and they go through this whole process of preparation. And then the event comes, i.e. it's hunting season. This is the feeling he was going through. And every time he saw one of those victims either come outside or through those windows, then the thrill increased itself. And, you know, he physically started to go through this, you know, blood pressure raises, his pupils dilate. They go through this process. And so I think he could try to get as close as possible to bring that feeling on. And also, do you guys, both of you, or either of you agree that each time he most likely became bolder? Like first would sit in the car, would drive by, then he'd park behind it where you can

look directly into their windows from above. I mean, we weren't over what, 40 feet away from their window looking right in. And then the next time, did he get out and look in the window directly in the window so close he could touch it? Did he try to initiate conversation with them, like ring the doorbell and go, hey, is this Jackie's house? Oh, no, it's not. Okay, sorry. Just what did he do in his links to become familiar with the layout of that home or to get closer to the victims? Jump in, guys. guys i gotta say nancy relative to this home uh out of all the homicide scenes that i worked

as an me investigator corner investigator i gotta tell you this ranks right up there with just the floor plan itself is being very complicated that if you did not have knowledge of it prior to arrival you'd be bumping into yourself in this place. Because the way the staircase is set up, and you know, from what I understand, if I remember correctly, that top floor, the very top floor, where those two young ladies were found, Nancy, that was an add-on. That's something that was not part of the original architecture of that structure. It's something that was added on years later. So this thing is kind of piecemealed. I'm a college professor. There's lots of houses in college towns that are like this,

but it would seem that you would have to have a familiarity with the interior of the house. And I have not physically been there, but just that, and I know you guys have, but in that open area leading out of those sliders out there, that's a perfect place for a hide because you've got a tree line back there from what I can see. When those lights are on, that house looks like it's on fire. You can see everything through those windows. You can sit out in those bushes all you want

and watch everything. And remember the cinder block? I think, McDonough, you were the first one to notice that. Cinder block stacked outside the bottom window where you could step up and really look in very easily. Yeah, and it could also have been used as a bench. I mean, that struck us, I think we would all agree, you know, really odd. It just didn't look right. It was out of place underneath, you know, that window there.

Now, whether it's in play or not right we'll we'll have to wait to see but those are the type of things that he would have he probably would have you know put into motion he would have taken the time to sit on that block for hours and remember this guy's a night a night owl he's operating in the dark because that, you know, goes back towards his personality as well. Where, you know, once you put them in the light, they're nothing. How do you, how the hell do you think he left that sheath behind? As methodical as he was in the planning, what happened? Well, you know, as Joe is talking about, you know, as we discussed this, that knife sheath was his, you know, downfall here in terms of through the whole process. I do find it interesting, though, if, in fact, that one of the victims was on top of it or it was.

I know it's to the side. Partially on top of it. She was on top of it or it was i know it's to the side partially on top of it she was on top of it jackie the other day was talking about how many times she's lost her cell phone in her her comfort room or under a pillow and you have to dig through everything to find it he i guarantee you in the dark he left that room had no idea that he had left that sheath behind it was was absurd. It's part and parcel of a frenzied event. You know, the sheath is merely a conveyance. That cold steel inside of it is his focus. And after this, I would think that anybody that was in this kind of fervor,

it's almost like a sexual fervor, you know, where they are so amped up at this point in time. You've got the sights. Even in the dark, you do have these sights. You've got the sounds, the smells, all that stuff. He's at a heightened state as he's leaving this place. That chief is the last thing on his mind. And that could be something that is going to turn out to be his downfall in this case.

To you, Chris McDonough, joining us from the interview room on YouTube. And Joseph Scott Morgan joining us from Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. We wait as more evidence becomes known. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.