Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONE-CHILLING BRYAN KOHBERGER DETAILS EMERGE Part 1

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

A new book claims Bryan Kohberger is not a random spree killer, but rather, he had one target in mind the night he allegedly killed four college students in their home off-campus in Moscow, Idaho. Author Howard Blum claims investigators believe in a non-targeted attack, the killer would have stopped at the first door inside the house, and it would have been instinctive to go into the first rooms after gaining entry, but that isn't what happened. Investigators point to the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortenson and Bethany Funke, as proof that Kohberger is after a specific target.  Listen as Nancy Grace and her panel discuss the points Howard Blum uncovers during his own investigation of the evidence submitted to a grand jury.  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Howard Blum - Author: "When The Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for The Idaho Student Murders;" Instagram: howard_blum_author /X: howardblum    Brian C. Stewart - Trial Attorney and Managing Partner at Parker & McConkie,  https://www.parkerandmcconkie.com    Dr. Angela Arnold – Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Chris McDonough  – Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective; Host of YouTube channel: “The Interview Room” Joseph Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” Twitter/X: @JoScottForensic See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bone-chilling Brian Koberger details emerge. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Bombshell, a new tell-all book reveals a bone-chilling theory on Idaho murder suspect Brian Koberger. Author Howard Bloom joins Crime Stories for an exclusive

interview. Howard Bloom is joining us right now from Manhattan along with an all-star panel to dissect what we know and what we are learning from Howard Bloom. You know, I have poured over every document, every search warrant, every return, every witness statement that I could get my mitts on. I have flown to Idaho, to Moscow, Idaho, in the midst of winter and trudge through the snow to look at the scene as best as I could to drive the route. I believe, oh yeah, good times, freezing. Then got in an SUV at night in the pitch dark at the time, I believe, Brian Koberger left that crime scene and started his circuitous route, although an hour's drive to his apartment at nearby Washington State University in Pullman,

which should have been about an eight minute drive. And somewhere along the way, he turns his cell phone back on. That said, after all that, I still learned so much from reading Howard Bloom's book. The name, When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders. Wow. Even the title made me stop. And in the midst of everything we all do in regular life, you know, working, your children, your cat, your dog, your mom, I managed to finish this book in one day. I practically could not put it down. I had it in two forms. I printed out what I had and had it on my iPad so I could look at it no matter where I was. Howard Bloom, it's amazing. You had me sitting in the Costco parking lot in the heat, reading your book, trying to get to the next chapter before I came back home. Well, I appreciate that. That's very kind. You sit in a room as an author and you wonder if anyone will read what you write,

meant to hear someone talk about it so graciously. I'm very flattered. So thank you. Well, I've never been accused of being kind before. So I will take that with a box of salt. I want to get right to it. There's so much in your book. I had to take copious notes.

So I'll just start at the beginning. It was an amazing intro. And I was struck by the fact that you start your book from Koberger's father's point of view. And what I learned about his father really touched my heart, how he never got to go to college. And he was so proud of Brian Koberger and was already referring to him as Dr. Koberger amongst his coworkers. And it reminded me so much, Howard, of my father, how he didn't get, we're first generation college. And when I got through law school, in his mind, it was the most amazing thing ever. So proud, right? Now, here's my question with that lead up. Almost at the beginning, his father and his family, Kohlberger's family, suspected him of being the killer. I found that just, I was dumbstruck.

Because, you know, when I read about a crime, I don't immediately think, oh, my son did that. In fact, I've never thought that. Tell me your thinking and why you say that. Michael Kohlberger makes this trip out to see his son to make the ride back with him. You know, this is a 28-year-old man, and his father is worried about him. He's making this trip. It's fatiguing. It's expensive.

But he's worried about his son. He's sitting next to him in this car, shoulder to shoulder. He knows the police are looking for a white Hyundai. And one of the first things he realizes when he meets his son is that his son's mood is volatile. That's his first sign that Brian is in a state. He goes out to meet his son in Washington state, and he doesn't know which Brian he's going to encounter. But that's his first sign and he begins to see as his mood, the moods change and become deeper and more acerbic.

He begins to wonder, oh my gosh. He begins to think the unthinkable. He begins to consider that his son could, in fact, be a murderer. And all this is building, building in his mind. And he's afraid to go there, as any father would. But he's getting these clues as if he were following footsteps in the snow. And the footsteps are becoming bloodier and bloodier. And he now realizes, could this really be true? And then all of a sudden, they're driving along in Indiana and

they see police sirens in the back and the car has to pull over. And he begins to feel, what is going to happen next? Wow. Guys, with me, Howard Bloom, who has literally written the book, the name of the book, When the Night Comes Falling, a requiem for the Idaho student murders. And I have learned so much more than we, the public have learned more than my sources have told me by exhaustive research by Howard Bloom. You're looking right at him. Howard, you stated that, these aren't your words, that you discovered this from what Koberger's father stated to other people. What did he state about immediately suspecting his son was the killer? He went out to Idaho, Washington State, at the beginning with suspicions. You have to remember that Michael, this is not his first trip out there. He even took his son out on the first trip

in August when his son was just registering for school. He had real concerns about his son. His son was a former heroin addict. His son had psychological problems. At the same time, he wanted to believe, against all hope, that his son was changing, that his son had reinvented himself. He had been a mediocre student, and now he was in an excellent graduate program for criminology. Michael wanted to believe that his son was going to get a PhD. He was going to be my Dr. Brian Koberger. And yet at the same time, in the back of his mind, he was thinking the unthinkable. And then things just fall into place. There was a shooting at blocks, just blocks from where Brian lived as they were making this trip across country. A man, a former veteran, went berserk and took hostages in a student housing,

and a SWAT team had to come in, and they killed him. And Michael Kohlberger, as he told people who spoke with me, began to feel that there was something just wrong in this part of the world. There were evil forces. That's how he put it at work. And his son was caught up in it. You know what? I've read a lot and investigated a lot about the family dynamics of Brian Coburger. Listen. Brian Coburger's family members are concerned about Brian's behavior prior to his arrest.

Author Howard Bloom says one of Koberger's sisters confronts their father about the possibility that Brian Koberger is involved in the Moscow murders. But Michael Koberger apparently brushes off their concerns. Bloom says Michael Koberger is on edge when he picks up his son to drive back from Washington to Pennsylvania, claiming the senior Koberger has seen the headlines. He knows four students are killed 12 miles from his son's house. And according to Bloom, Michael Koberger knows what a troubled son he has. Wow. You know, joining me, an all-star panel, in addition to this incredible author, Howard Bloom. Howard, I noticed that one of the points of contention was about the route. And when I was driving that route from the King Road murder scene back to his apartment in Pullman at Pullman, I was wondering why he did that, why he drove an hour in the middle of the night. And I'm sure, you know, there's no streetlights. It's in pitch black And he only ran off the

road a couple of times when a semi would come by. But he basically did the same thing with his dad. The dad flies out, does a quick turnaround. He's exhausted. He gets in the Elantra with his son and the son refuses to go the direct and much shorter route. Do you think that had anything to do with Koberger believing he was being followed or monitored? I think Koberger being a criminology student was trying to take precautions. At this point, I don't think he had any belief or any knowledge that he was being followed. However, he was trying to be circumspect. He was trying to be one step smarter than the authorities. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to go out to Chris McDonough joining us, the director of the Cold Case Foundation,

former homicide detective, host of The Interview Room on YouTube, who, like me, like Howard, has seen the evidence, has walked the scene. Very familiar with the area. Chris McDonough, you've had a lot of homicide cases. And very often, family members know their son is a killer, but they will never admit it. And I'm thinking about Coburger's dad, who knew he had suspicions at the beginning. His son was a quadruple killer. Yeah, and Nancy, I think what happens is, right, that parental tendency kicks in in relationship to they want to believe it,

but they don't necessarily want to believe it. And so it's kind of a tug and pull from a parental physician. However, in this particular case, it's obvious dad had his radar was way up and had taken that trip to go out and pick up his son. Well, you know, think about it, Chris. And let me throw this to Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist joining us, AngelaArnoldMD.com. Have you ever seen parents that tiptoe around their child? All the time. That they're just waiting for an explosion. And when I was reading the first

chapter in Howard's book, When the Night Comes Falling, you could feel the tension of the father in the car with Koberger on this long drive, just waiting for an explosion. But we got to keep in mind the dad, Michael Koberger, had spent his whole life trying to prop up, support, help Brian Koberger. So he knew it was like walking through a minefield. Anything can make him explode. And when Koberger insisted on this circuitous route, which took hours and hours longer than a direct route, he went, okay, fine. You're the boss. Those are the words the father used to Koberger. Well, sure. Because Nancy, the last thing he was going to do was confront this guy because I have to wonder if the father, if the father knew all of this, was the father a little bit terrified

of what could set Brian off and possibly was the father's life in danger at this point? Because apparently Brian was agitated at this time. I wonder if the circuitous route had anything to do with some sort of OCD kind of disorder that this guy has. Howard Bloom, you also described Brian Koberger, his heroin habit, how he got into heroin. And when he managed to kick heroin after his father turned him in for stealing the sister's phone and he had to go into some sort of a rehab, a treatment to get his life straight. He kicked heroin and decided his body was a temple. And that is when he became a vegetarian.

And I had wondered where that started, because now he's demanding certain types of meals behind bars, and he's getting them. And I remember an anecdote where the family couldn't cook with certain pots and pans because they had once cooked meat. I'm working up to it. You reveal that Kohlberger had two types of plastic surgery after he loses 100 pounds. What were they? Brian Kohlberger is intent, and this is the admirable part of him, he's trying to reinvent himself. He comes out of this depressing hardscrabble existence, a family

with two bankruptcies. He's going to a hardscrabble high school. His father is a janitor at the high school. He's sort of embarrassed by that. He becomes a heroin addict. And yet, to his credit, he works himself out of this. He then wants to, he's trying to approach girls at high school. They're ignoring him. He loses the weight. And he still has this sort of flesh that's going over his midsection. And it's just not the sort of guy he wants to be. He wants to be a player. He wants to be one of the cool guys. And he thinks, so he has this surgery. These two surgeries are covered by insurance. And he reinvents himself. He's in good shape, as you can see in the photographs. He works out. He does martial arts. And he still tries to become the man he wants to be.

The plastic surgeries. He has these two plastic surgeries to get over his midsection so there's not this sort of envelope. Howard, you're so polite. Okay, you outline it in your book. He had two surgeries, one of them being an abdominoplasty and the other, you know what, they're long. Let me rephrase this. You described two plastic surgeries that Brian Koberger has. Both of them, I believe, were related to removing flaps of skin left over from the 100 plus pound weight loss, a flap of skin and tissue that went down over his private parts and his lower stomach.

He wanted to get rid of that. And when he did get rid of that through plastic surgery, he had a serious buff body is the way I take it from your book. Is that what happened? That's exactly what happened. He had this vision that he would become a new Brian Koberger. And the tragedy is he almost succeeded. He gets out to Washington State, a new man, and he's trying to live a new life and yet he's pulled back in to what he always is,

to his essence, I believe. Brian Koberger allegedly enters the home and walks past the first rooms he sees coming into the Moscow, Idaho house and goes straight up a narrow staircase and turns directly into the room of his target, Madison Mogan. Author Howard Bloom says investigators believe Maddie Mogan is the target, and her best friend Kaylegan's office is killed because she's in the room with Mogan. Did Brian Koberger's parents suspect their son? An explosive new book suggests family knew more than they ever let on about their troubled son. Author Howard Bloom tells us more. Guys, joining me is the

author Howard Bloom, author of When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders. Howard Bloom has gone where many have not, tediously investigating everything about this case, and the book is full of revelations. We were just describing how Koberger's own family thought at the get-go, before he was ever named a suspect or even a POI person of interest, that he committed the quadruple murders. And in this vein, can you imagine Koberger's father, so proud of his son getting his Ph.D., flies out to Washington to drive Koberger back home to the Poconos area for Thanksgiving. And he's sitting there for all these hours in this white Elantra, which, of course, he knows has been named in the case and looking over at his son,

who is acting more and more volatile. But I want to move on to the next point. Listen. In a shocking revelation, author Howard Bloom claims Brian Koberger is not a random spree killer. He had one target in mind the night he allegedly killed four college students in their home off campus in Moscow, Idaho. Bloom says investigators believe in a non-targeted attack. The killer would have stopped at the first door inside the house. It would have been instinctive to go into the first rooms after gaining entry.

But that isn't what happened. Investigators point to the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk, as proof Koberger is after a specific target. You know, you really back your theory up with a lot of facts and the way they're laid out, it makes perfect sense. But all along, it has been believed, it has been accepted that Kelly Gonsalves was the target, the original target, and the others were just collateral damage. But you say, no. Why?

Well, at this point, Kaylee is not even really living in the house. She's living up north with her family. She's going to graduate at the end of the term in December. And Brian really wouldn't have come in contact with her necessarily. But he did go to the Mad Greek restaurant in downtown Moscow. It served vegan food, which he liked, which he would adhere to strictly. And Maddie was a waitress there. And my belief is that they encountered one another in the restaurant.

Were any words said? Did they have a conversation? I don't think that was necessary. You know, both the prosecution and the defense have said for the record that there was no interaction between Brian Koberger and any of the victims. He did not follow any of them on social media. He, to their knowledge, never had any real conversations with them. But Brian was a man whose life was sort of determined by obsessions, determined such as being addicted to heroin, such as losing 100 pounds,

such as deciding to become the best student after being a mediocre student. And I think once he saw Maddie for whatever reasons I mean she's an attractive blonde woman charming vivacious a julliant he becomes interested in her and I think his fixation he would see the parties he would be in I believe on the periphery of events as parties were hosted at this house on King Road, a party house. And he would look at that and he felt it was in some ways a constant rebuke to the life that he was leading and the life he wanted to live.

He could never be a part of that. And he decided in his rage and his mania i believe to do something about it and when he entered the house that night and he goes in through the kitchen he passes two bedrooms the bedroom where zayna is with ethan and also uh the bedroom where where dylan is he doesn't stop he goes up up a flight which isn't your natural inclination uh into maddie's room and he finds her but he's surprised to see that kaylee is there he has no idea that as he's sleeping over that she's staying for the weekend she'd come to town to show up her new car she just gotten a uh a used range, and she was very proud of it and excited by it,

and she wanted to share that with her friends. And he discovers Maddie and then kills her. Kaylee fights back, climbs out of the bed, is pressed against the wall, and he kills her. And Kaylee is collateral damage. When he goes downstairs. The two other victims are collateral damage, too. Joining me is a now famous professor of forensics, Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, a star of a hit series, Body Bags, with Joe Scott Morgan. But for my purposes, and most importantly, he is a, quote, death investigator who has investigated over 1,000 deaths. Joe Scott Morgan, you and I have gone over the evidence, both on air and off, trying to determine who was the target. First of all,

it doesn't matter who was the target because they were all for murdered. But the reason we were looking for this needle in a haystack is to determine if we knew the target, we could better figure out who was the perpetrator, right? So you're hearing what Howard Bloom outlines in his chapter 15. And I think this may be dispositive from your point of view, the attacks on Gonsalves versus Maddie Mogan. They are very revealing. Explain. They're very revealing because of the level of violence, I think, that's involved here. You've got these two victims that are contained in that bedroom up there.

And I got to tell you, based upon what Howard is saying, the idea that this individual, Koberger, allegedly knew where to go in this house because, as you well know, you stood outside that house, Nancy. It's a very confusing layout. You would have to have specific knowledge of where her room would be at that particular time. Now, the fact that there was another occupant in there, maybe that's the case. And he was surprised by that. But it goes to this idea of I would like to try to understand if he had scoped this place out for a particular period of time. Also, this kind of dovetails with what Howard had said as well, that he saw parties going on and that this is kind of a projection. He understands the life in there.

There was a real chilling video that came up, I don't know, about a year ago. I don't know if you guys recall this, of them, the occupants of that house, actually giving internal views of that in a TikTok video. It made my skin crawl as a dad and as a college professor, because the individual that's seeing this can see the layout inside of that inside of that structure, which I think that we can all agree is kind of peculiar, to say the very least. OK, you can't have it both ways, Joe Scott Morgan or you, Howard Bloom. Do I dare to call you on the carpet after you've literally written the book? We can't have he's full of rage and goes after these girls because he can't have them. He can't have the party life, the popularity,

the thing he's been seeking since he lost that hundred pounds and had those two plastic surgeries. It's not happening for him. You can't have the rage. Plus, I really liked the way you laid this out. Here we go. Near the beginning of your book, you talk about Brian Koberger delving into, quote, the criminal mind and will be a, quote, scientist exploring why criminals do what they do. It's been kicked around that his motive, not that the state needs to prove a motive, they don't. But juries like to hear it. So practically speaking, you better hand one over on a silver platter on top of the Christmas tree. You can't have him full of rage and methodically trying to carry out the perfect murder and get away with it very calmly and methodically. So which one is it? What about it, Bloom? He was filled with mania, which is not the same thing as rage.

And you're trying to understand, make a rational explanation for completely irrational acts. What Brian Koberger tried to do that night is to commit, I believe, the perfect crime. I believe he wanted to get Maddie, he wanted to kill her, and then once he gets into the house, once he finds another girl there, all his plans fall apart. That's why he leaves the knife sheath behind. He did think things out. As the police well know, there wasn't any blood, a trail of blood left by the perpetrator in the house. All they had was the touch DNA on the knife sheath. There was no trail of blood going up the hill or where a car was parked.

To this day, they have not found the murder weapon. To this day, they have not found any clothes covered with blood from that house. And the house was filled with blood. We've all seen the pictures of the rivulets of blood leaking out from the foundation of the house. So he did have some planning. He knew enough, he thought, to turn off his phone from 247 to 448 for those two hours when the murders were taking place and he was getting... Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Howard Bloom, you're the fire hydrant. You're giving me the information faster than I can take it in. I can't drink from a fire hydrant. You've got to give it to me teaspoon by teaspoon. And I'm telling you, this book, amazing. But Brian C. Stewart joining me, high profile lawyer joining us who practices in this jurisdiction as well as in Utah.

Brian, I hear what Howard is saying. I hear what Joe Scott Morgan is saying. And I've got to agree. I empathize. I get both the theories. The reality is the state never has to prove a motive, but jurors want to hear a motive. So do you believe that when this case goes to trial, which it is, despite the defense dragging their feet and dragging the judge along with them, he's going along with it. Do you believe the state has to pick a theory as to motive because these two are not consistent?

Or are they rage versus method? Well, motive can be an important part of the circumstantial evidence that that leads a jury to understand why a perpetrator commits a crime. But as you said, it's not necessary to prove that they committed the crime. Here, you know, where Brian Kohlberger seems like somebody who's studying criminal justice and perhaps sees himself as the smartest person in the room or a narcissist, his motivation may be to commit the perfect crime. And he would know that choosing someone in another city who he doesn't have a relationship with would create a lot of distance between him and the potential victim. That's the first thing that police look for is relationships in a murder. And he might have chosen Maddie as someone who's young and blonde and beautiful and

might get him a lot of notoriety as he evades justice. And so if that's his motivation, that could certainly be the reason why he chose somebody and doesn't have necessarily rage for Maddie, but has rage for the system or mania, as Harold says, to beat the system. What happened the fateful night of the University of Idaho four murders? New theories revealed in a special episode with author Howard Bloom. And joining us, Howard Bloom, who has meticulously investigated so many facts of the case that we didn't know about, including Koberger's past, how he lost 100 pounds and had two different plastic surgeries to remove a flap of skin from his stomach that went down over his genitals. He didn't want that look. He lost 100 pounds on his own, had two plastic surgeries to reinvent himself as a modern day Adonis. But according to his friends, what I'm reading in When the Night Comes Falling, his friends didn't like how that transformation changed his personality. He became, I know it all, very aggressive. And that was born out at Washington State University. He treated his

friends in high school that way. After he got his new look, he became in his mind, the it guy, but somehow he couldn't pull it off. What, if anything, did that have to do with the murders of four beautiful University of Idaho students? Okay. You know, to this whole panel, including Howard Bloom joining us, I've got to have more than what Joe Scott Morgan is telling me, that the attack on Kelly was much more savage than the attack on Maddie Mogan. Why? All four of them were brutally stabbed dead. I need to know who is my target. And in this book, Bloom describes a blood trail. He also describes the blood literally

leaking down the outside of the house, which I observed when I went to Idaho. But that's it. Let's talk about the blood evidence, Howard Bloom. What about the blood evidence convinces you as to who the real target was? One point that you just made about the wounds on Kaylee being so severe. Kaylee fought back. She was not, she was originally in the bed with Maddie. She gets up from the bed. The room is very narrow. She tries to get towards the wall but she's

trapped by Koberger and she's fighting back and she is not dying easily it's a very violent death and he's enraged that he even has to I believe that he had to encounter her he did not expect her And to then find this woman fighting back like a tiger is putting him in his mania, is exacerbating the situation. He thought he would go in there and kill Maddie, who was her presence, rebuked him. I think that's what was going on that night in that house nancy yeah jump in so there's a couple things uh you know from my think thought process in this and uh one is you know that evening kohlberger he's he's he's i don't think he's manic depressive or in a manic state in any way shape or form my personal opinion I think he's very organized. He selected his target set on purpose. And the reason I feel

that way, there's a couple of things. One is both Madison and Kaylee, they're attached at the hip from elementary school. They go through, they select the same college they they have the same kind of birthday parties together they're in the exact same house and that evening when coberger pulls up if he's our guy uh they he's got to see her car he's got to know based on the surveillance that he's been doing, that she potentially could be there as well. And so we have to now ask ourselves. I disagree. I disagree because I don't know that Koberger knew about her new car, a Range Rover. That was new. And well, I mean, it's a used vehicle.

At this point, Kaylee is not really living in the house. She's living in Coreur d'Alene. She just comes in for that weekend. And he didn't know that. He didn't expect it. And when he's circling the house, I believe he's not really doing that night three times. He comes and goes. I believe he's not doing surveillance.

I believe he's trying to find the will inside himself to turn off the motor, to stop the car, to climb down the hill and commit this crime. Each time he circles the house, it's not to see what's going on. He doesn't even really notice the cars, but it's really an internal battle he's fighting. If he had seen the cars, if he'd even seen the DoorDash delivery, it was a DoorDash delivery at 4 a.m. He might have reconsidered it. Howard Bloom, you were taking our program down a pig path. Now, I guess you joining us from Manhattan, that you have never been down a pig path. But what a pig path is, is certainly not a direct line or goes in any organized manner.

It just goes all over the place. But you know what, Howard Bloom? That's the way an investigation is. When I would sit around a table talking with investigators and witnesses, other DAs, one topic leads to another topic, leads to another topic. And it's hard to marshal your evidence, which you did a great job in your book doing. But guys, he brought up another thing. He brought up, Bloom brought up that Koberger circles the house three times. And yes, I'm going to get to that store clerk who in my mind helped crack this case, who you say wants to remain anonymous,

and I don't blame her. Long story short, how did you confirm, Howard Bloom, that a white Elantra, or car similar to a white Elantra, circled the King Road address three times leading up to the quadruple murder. How did you confirm that? Well, part of it is in court documents and the public affidavits. But I also spoke with the gas station attendant who gave the surveillance video to the police, too. So a lot of that is public record. What is not public record, clearly, is what was in the driver's mind at that time as he

was circling. Something you have to remember, in all the surveillance videos, there's not one photograph of the license plate of the car. There's not one photograph of the driver. You can't see who it is holding the steering wheel. The FBI has tried everything to try to pull a picture from inside the car of who was driving that night, and they couldn't. So Kohlberger, I believe, was the man in that Hyundai Elantra, and he was trying to find the will to cross over

into the man who was thinking about this horrific crime to becoming the sort of man who could commit it. And it was a difficult, difficult journey he was taking internally that night. Families of the slain Idaho four victims await justice as a judge sets a date for trial. Yeah, and that judge, many argue, is kowtowing to the defense. When are these families going to get justice? That's a whole nother can of worms. With me, Howard Bloom, the author of an incredible new book, When the Night Comes Falling, a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders. Okay, all hands on deck to analyze what Howard Bloom was telling us. Now, Howard Bloom, you crossed over into the gas station video, which is later when I believe Koberger's leaving the scene.

I want to go back to you stating in your book that you believe Koberger, white Elantra, circles the crime scene three times that we know of before the murders occur. Now, not the gas station video. You are telling me that's caught on video. Is it, as you describe at the end, near the end of chapter 20, a guy who owns a rental complex, I think three apartments, a rental complex nearby, and he's got a camera on top of the rental complex looking down. Did his video catch the Elantra circling three times before the murders? Yes, and in this video too, they still can't make out a license plate, they still can't make out in the darkness the driver still can't make out in the darkness the driver.

But they are able to make out the car. When the FBI in Quantico is trying to figure out from these videos what kind of car it is, they try three different times until they finally come up with a Hyundai Elantra from 2011 to 2015. At first, they thought it was just 2011 to 2013. And that's one of the reasons why Brian Kohlberger takes so long to find him, because the authorities in Washington state were really looking for the wrong car. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Jessica Morgan and everybody jump in. I'm going to circle back to you, Brian Stewart, about mens rea, about intent. Is it even needed? Do we need explicit intent or is it implicit by the number of the killings that we have? Murder ones, of course we do. But I want to talk to you about the legal theory before that. Joe Scott Morgan, you hear Howard Bloom describing three times he circled that we know of and it's caught, I believe, on the top of that rental facility. There's a camera up on the roof. And I looked everywhere when I was out there, Joe Scott Morgan.

I went very slowly and it was slippery and icy. And I fell more than once. I looked all the way up and down the street for surveillance videos. It's very narrow. I've told you this story. I could stand on one side of the street, look into the kitchen window across the street and tell you what kind of liquid soap they had sitting on their sink at the kitchen window. It's that close. I did not see the overhead

surveillance camera on that rental. It's on the roof. It's incredible. Now, he was talking about the FBI tried everything to enhance the tag and the driver. How? How? What do they do to enhance? They're washing this thing through various programs that they have, Nancy, in order to try to tighten down the image because I'm sure that it's very granulated, particularly given the nighttime status of this, where you're not going to be able to pick up without some kind of light enhancement like an infrared or something like this that'll be able to give you finer detail. So it's going to be greatly compromised. And look, you have to think about the house itself. This house is kind of shaded in darkness from the rear. You're not going to see a lot there.

There's not a lot. It's not like being in a huge city where you've got streetlights that are all over the place. It'll be illuminating this environment. So it's going to be a tough ask if you're thinking about attempting to get an image that's that's capturable so that they can do what they need to do in order to identify this individual. OK, Joe Scott, just please stop. You know what? I can see I can see a tiny little crater on the moon, but I can't get the tag number or the visage of Koberger's face. Why? Because these houses don't have the Hubble telescope on them. Nobody likes a smart aleck or a know-it-all, Joe Scott.

Well, these cameras that you're talking about, they're not the highest of quality. I mean, look how many are turned out every single day. They're in shops all over the place. It doesn't mean that it's going to be a great quality. Did Brian Koberger's parents suspect their son? An explosive new book suggests family knew more than they ever let on about their troubled son. Howard Bloom. His book is so chock full of evidence and facts supporting what many of us have been thinking and pondering and so much more.

When the night comes falling, my Howard Bloom. Howard, we were just talking to Joe Scott Morgan about why the FBI could not enhance that video better than it did. I get it. But I heard you saying something in the background. What was that? Well, not only couldn't they enhance the video the fbi has this program that they developed really for anti-terrorism activities and they tried three different times uh to analyze the car and they got three different years originally they had the car uh was not a

hyundai elantra they made it a nissan sentra uh finally, there was a 2011, and then a 2013. And then they finally put the end to 2011 to 2015. I can assure you, the FBI's fumbling will come up in court. I'm sure the defense will raise this and try to impugn the identification of the car. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. The FBI fumbling? I don the fbi fumbling i don't see them fumbling here what do you mean by that well fumbling in the sense that their technology was just not up to snuff and they gave declarations the first original uh be on the lookout notice

was not for a 2015 uh hyundai elantra it was for for a 2011 Hyundai Elantra. Hold on Howard Bloom. You mentioned a detail and I'm not sure if you thought I was just going to ignore it or didn't catch it, but you said the FBI, uh, was trying to enhance. They tried it three times, I believe you said. But are you referring to the type of video surveillance that was ultimately introduced in the Kyle Rittenhouse case where we had satellite surveillance from nearly 9000 feet in the air to figure out what really happened. And there was video. Did the FBI go to the extent of grabbing sat video? This was much more rudimentary. What they had was a surveillance photograph, and they tried to enhance it. These were grainy photographs, and they thought they run them through this machine, this process, this computer program that was developed at vast expense by the Department of Defense and Homeland Security originally for terrorism activities and they thought

they could get the identity of the car and then they passed it out in their original be on the lookout at the Moscow police sent nationwide for a 2011 to 2013 Conde Alantra. That was a mistake. That wasn't the year of the car they ultimately decided was Coburg. Guys, we are speaking to an all star panel, including author Howard Bloom, who has just finished his book. When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders. To my panel, I want to thank you for kindly agreeing to join us again because we've barely scratched the surface of the evidence, how it was accumulated, and what does it mean with Howard Bloom? For instance, have we found a receipt for the outfit Brian Koberger purchased and wore during the murders? There's so much more. Please join us with the same all-star panel, including Howard Bloom,

as we, like the investigators, comb through the Koberger evidence. Thank you to our guests for being with us tonight and illuminating the mysterious facts surrounding a quadruple murder of four beautiful students. Thank you for joining us as we search for the truth that will hopefully result in a true verdict. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart podcast