Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bryan Kohberger Escapes Trial Day: WHY?

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Bryan Kohberger's trial start date has come and gone, with the accused killer still proclaiming his innocence. The trial was postponed after Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, and the judge accepted it. Kohberger's attorney, Anne Taylor, said the defense team needs more time to effectively present their case.    The search for evidence that Kohberger knew his victims continues. Investigators say digital evidence and surveillance video links Kohberger to the murders. The defense says there is no connection, but the Gonsalves family tells a "48 Hours" investigation that after learning Kohberger's name, they did their own online search. They say they found an Instagram account they believe belongs to Kohberger which followed both Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Gonsalves. That account has now been deactivated.   No word on a new trial date.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Tara Malek – Boise, ID, Attorney & Co-owner of Smith + Malek; Former State and Federal Prosecutor; Twitter: @smith_malek Dr. Carla Manly – Clinical Psychologist, Author: “Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships & Love Fearlessly” Sheryl McCollum – Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder & Host of New Podcast: “Zone 7;” Twitter: @149Zone7 Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” Twitter: @JoScottForensic Rachel Schilke- Breaking News Reporter for The Washington Examiner; Twitter: @rachel_schilke See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, we are learning more and more about the Brian Koberger prosecution. As all of you legal eagles know now, Koberger will face trial in the murders of four beautiful University of Idaho students. I had the opportunity to meet alone with the mom of Ethan Chapin. Her resiliency is amazing after what all she and the other victims' families have been through. And on the footsteps of that meeting that I will never forget,

we are learning more and more about the crime scene and i only wonder if all the parents are privy to very very disturbing information that we are learning for instance allegations that one of the victims was essentially trapped and couldn't get away. That many believe Maddie, Madison Mogan, was the intended victim. Why? This as the court is actually considering a closed courtroom for various hearings where no one can be present, which is contrary to everything that the justice system stands for, open courtrooms, that there may very well not be cameras in the courtroom so we can't see what's happening as the case unfolds. And of course,

as you know, the defense has withdrawn the demand for speedy trial. This case is on hold indefinitely. As the question looms, is Brian Koberger actually an incel, an involuntary celibate leading to intense hatred of women? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Take a listen to Christy and Steve Gonsalves on 48 Hours. The bed was up against the wall. The headboard was touching the wall and the left side of the bed was touching the wall.

And we believe that Maddie was on the outside and Kaylee was on the inside. According to Coroner Mabbitt, the killer's first victim was Maddie, says Steve. And then from Maddie, he moved on to your daughter. You believe she had awakened at that point? Yes. There's evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation. The way the bed was set up is what... She was trapped. She was she was trapped oh my stars when

i'm hearing this i'm just imagining based on what the gonzales are saying and they are privy to information to which we don't have access they believe their daughter was trapped that coberger did not anticipate maddie mogan having anyone else in the room? Is that what they're saying? With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we are learning. First of all, to Rachel Schilke, breaking news reporter for the Washington Examiner. Rachel, thank you for being with us. What is he saying?

What is Mr. Gonsalves saying? Well, he's thinking that there is evidence that maybe his daughter's best friend was the target and that his daughter just was an unfortunate victim of a horrible crime. And that it's possible that he only wanted to kill one person. And just the way events unfolded, he ended up killing four. I'm not sure that I could buy into his theory that one of the girls was the intended victim and that finding two girls in one room made him think he had to kill the other person, which would have been Kaley. but then why go on to other rooms and kill more people with me as i said an all-star panel right now to professor forensics jacksonville state university author of blood beneath my feet on amazon and star of a hit series body bags with joe scott morgan joe scott morgan joining us joe sc, explain to me the significance of the furniture possibly being moved.

One bed pushed away. The bed was set up, according to Mr. Gonsalves, trapping his daughter. Yeah, the bed was essentially cornered, if you will. So you've got one, if you imagine the right, if you're laying on the bed and you're right over your right shoulder, that corner of the bed would be pressed against the wall. Wait, say that again very slowly so we can all envision. Yeah, sure. Sure. No problem. So if you're laying in your own bed at home, just imagine you're laying in your bed.

And if you imagine over your right shoulder, the head of the bed is cornered in the right corner of the room okay that that what what happens is that increase that that creates a barrier where you have a wall immediate to your right then you'll have the wall behind your head so there's only two ways to actually escape out of that bed either you go over the foot of the bed, which I believe is adjacent to the doorway, or you go off of the left side of the bed. And if there is, unfortunately in this case, what they are saying, at least allegedly, is that you have one victim that is deceased to the left or the outer aspect of the bed uh and if you have some savage that is on top of you in this environment he's pressing you down he may be leaning over the

body of an individual that's already deceased and he's attacking you there's nowhere to go nancy uh these are they're they're not big robust muscular women these are you know kind of diminutive ladies that are in this bed uh the attacker is probably rather large uh and he's wielding a knife and just imagine a thing that's always come to mind with me with this knife attack is almost like a classic sewing machine where the needle goes up and down, up and down. And this is what you have where you have this attack that's going on simultaneously

between the two individuals. You're going to have somebody in this particular case who we're referring to as Kaylee. She's going to have an awareness that she's being attacked, Nancy. Her pain centers are firing. She's trying to get away.

Maybe, and this is only a maybe, she has this awareness. The evidence is perhaps that she's raising her arms up to try to get away to fend him off. And I would imagine she has some pretty ghastly defensive injuries. I want to hear that sound again, if you don't mind, Jackie. This is Mr. and Mrs. Gonsalves. This is, of course, Kelly Gonsalves' parents speaking to 48 Hours. And I want to take in everything they're saying. Listen. The bed was up against the wall. The headboard was touching the wall.

And the left side of the bed was touching the wall. And we believe that Maddie was on the outside and Kelly was on the inside. According to Coroner Mabbitt, the killer's first victim was Maddie, says Steve. And then from Maddie, he moved on to your daughter. You believe she had awakened at that point? Yes. There's evidence to show that she awakened

and tried to get out of that situation. The way the bed was set up is what's- She was trapped. She was trapped. Maddie is being identified by Coroner Mabbitt as the first victim. When there are multiple stabbings of multiple victims, it's very hard to determine based on the injuries to the bodies alone. Who's the first victim? Chronologically with me, Cheryl McCollum joining us, founder, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. You can find her at coldcasecrimes.org, forensic expert and host of a new hit series, Zone 7 podcast.

Cheryl, there are extrinsic ways, not just the injuries to the body, not just those injuries themselves, to determine, it's commonsensical, who was the first victim. Explain. Well, number one, it was her bedroom that he entered first. That's assuming he knew and had identified who would be his first victim and knew which one was their bedroom. Correct. But again, when you've got somebody that enters on the second floor and goes to the third floor first, that was his target. He went where he wanted to go first for a reason. That's the order he chose. The other thing is she's probably not going to have any defensive wounds because she was asleep. Whereas, you know, Kaylee would probably have some because she did

wake up, but there's another factor, not just the wall where the bed was up against the wall, but keep in mind, she was under covers. So if he put his knees on that bed at all, those covers also helped trap her. So there would be injuries to the sheets, to the comforter, to her, you know, pajamas in some way. So those are the kind of things we're looking for, that he enters the home on the second floor, goes up the stairs. There's no reason if he's just entering that house to kill people that he would go up those stairs. That to me is for a target. He enters her room first. That's the target. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

To you, Joe Scott Morgan, I agree with everything Cheryl McCollum has just said. The medical examiner and the coroner has stated to him, it's clear Maddie was the first victim. I'm thinking, in addition to what Cheryl said, that we see other clues such as let's let's hypothesize if Maddie was the first victim that would make Kelly Gonsalves the second victim they were in the same bed together their DNA could be on the knife as it stabbed the other victims so that would indicate they were stabbed first. Their DNA on that knife would absolutely be transferred to victims three and four. And of course, that's Zanna Cronodal and Ethan Chapin. Wait, I had another thought.

I wanted to run by you. Yes, ma'am. Of course, the other two victims could very well still be asleep. They may not have heard the other two victims can very well still be asleep. They may not have heard the first two victims be killed. There may not have been any crying or screaming because it was at night. Everybody was sleepy in bed. But thinking of the order of the victims also, where was the knife found, Joe Scott, under which victim? Well, the sheath was found, I think, adjacent to Maddie's leg in the bed. So that would put the sheath itself at the foot of the bed.

When it was first unsheathed, maybe. Yeah. And that's my big contention here, Nancy. I bought one of these knives just FYI, one of these KVAR USMC combat knives. I bought it. I wanted to feel what it felt like to see what the ability or what the potential might be. Everybody goes on and on about the snap and about the DNA. What was really fascinating to me, Nancy, was the fact that this thing's got a gigantic belt loop on it.

And I'm thinking, why in the heck are you holding a knife sheath? Why is it, if you're being so very careful, first off, did you forget your belt when you walked out of the house? Are you wearing clothing perhaps that doesn't have belt loops like, I don't know, a jumpsuit, you know, like you could go buy at a big box store just to throw on all your clothing. Remember what we're hearing? We've heard dark clothing. That has been repeated. But why would you just leave the knife sheath there on the bed?

You've gone to all this trouble, as Mac had mentioned, to creep up to that third story. You know, under the cover of darkness here, you've waited for the lights to go out. And then dramatically, you, under the cover of darkness here, you've waited for the lights to go out. And then dramatically, you go to the end of the bed and, you know, unshoot this knife and then drop it and leave it behind. Why don't you have the same fashion to you? Well, I wonder if when he sat down wearing the knife sheath, if he had it misplaced on his belt, it would have, you know, come forward.

When you have a knife sheath on in the wrong, it's got to be in the right place on your belt. If you have it, for instance, right in front of you and you sit down, it's going to poke straight out. I don't know why he took it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a clip. This is something. Oh, I see. A leather loop that you run your belt through.

This thing is robust. Nancy, this thing is made for combat. Marines are issued these things. There are a lot of, I have a lot of Marine buddies that still have theirs, that they were issued these. And these things are robust. They're meant to go into jungle environments. You're right. Why did he take off the knife sheath?

And it is knife sheath, not the knife itself. I was thinking knife earlier. It's the knife sheath left behind with Kohlberger's DNA on the snap. Take a listen to more of what Mr. and Mrs. Gonsalves have to say to 48 Hours. He had to know when people were coming, people were going. I think that he at least had opened that door went in tested the waters looked around Steve says the coroner told him the killer's rampage started on the third floor where both Maddie and Kaylee had their bedrooms Christy thinks he wasn't expecting to find the two

friends together in the same bed I do think that his plan went awry I do think that you know you know, he intended to kill one and killed four. Let's think about that. Rachel Schilke joining me from the Washington Examiner. Isn't it correct that Kayla Gonsalves already had a job and she had come back that weekend to show her former roommates her new car? Yes, that's true. I remember that was one of the things that shocked me and saddened me about this case is that she wasn't even supposed to be there. I think her name was still on the lease. I remember that was one of the things that shocked me and saddened me about this case is that she wasn't even supposed to be there. I think her name was still on the lease. I think those details are a little fishy, but her name was still there. So she could come and go from the house if she pleased, but she was already gone.

You know, she had things going on. She just came back to see her best friend and never got to leave, which is so incredibly sad. Yes. Well put, Rachel Schilke. I want to hear that one more time, what the Gonsalves' are saying about the order of the murders. Does it matter? Yes, actually, it does. When this finally goes to trial, listen. He had to know when people were coming, people were going. I think that he at least had opened that door, went in, tested the waters, looked around. Steve says the coroner told him the killer's rampage started on the third floor, where both Maddie and Kaylee had their bedrooms.

Christy thinks he wasn't expecting to find the two friends together in the same bed. I do think that his plan went awry. I do think that, you know, he intended to kill one and killed four. Okay, does that make sense? Part of that I agree with. But why would you go on to kill two more people that had not been alerted to your presence? Tara Malik is joining us, attorney, co-owner of Smith & Malick, former state and federal prosecutor at smithmalick.com. Tara, thank you for being with us. What would be the rationale of killing two other people that were not alerted to your presence? Well, we simply just don't know enough yet. I mean, they may have been alerted to the presence. He may have gone on some sort of killing spree. You know, he's got these two people that are in his clutches.

He may have gotten some sort of weird adrenaline rush or, you know, high off of taking these two lives and moved on to other people in the house. I mean, if you're a killer who's going into a house and perhaps you're caught off guard by the fact that there's more than one person, you may have had one person as a target in mind, you may start panicking and being worried about the fact that you're going to have witnesses, other witnesses who may be present in this house that you weren't expecting. And maybe your intent is to get rid of those and really try and get away from the situation without leaving a trace. And if Koberger is and was the killer, and if he's the type of person who, you know, was obsessed with evidence and committing the perfect type of crime, that may have been a thought that was running through his head. Let me ask you this, guys, Tara Malik is a veteran trial lawyer.

Does it make a difference? And I believe it does. And I've got a reason for saying that, that you are able to tell a jury the chronological order. Yeah, I think it does make a difference. I mean, when you're presenting a case to a jury, they, even though one of the elements isn't the chronological order of what occurred. The jury is going to want you to paint a picture for them of what occurred when and where. They're going to want those types of answers. This presentation of evidence has to make sense to this jury. You're trying to convince them beyond a reasonable doubt that this person has committed the crime here. And so you're going to have to track this person's movement throughout this house. You're going to have to track the evidence throughout

this house and paint that picture for them as gruesome as it may be here. So for all of those reasons, I think it's very essential for this jury to understand whatever juries pick for this trial to understand what occurred in exactly what order it occurred in and when you're tracing kind of the forensic evidence and details of it you know you've got you've got a witness a roommate who was not killed and they're going to be part of this story as well and they're going to be presenting what they saw purportedly in this house, too. So when you're explaining this to a jury, you have to have your story down and it has to coincide with the physical evidence or the defense will tear it up when they get the witness on cross-examined witnesses on cross-examination. Dr. Carla Manley joining us, clinical psychologist and author of Date Smart at drcarlamanley.com. Dr. Carla, many people believe that there is a certain order and a certain method that

Koberger had to the murders. Weigh in. Absolutely. And it makes sense when you look at someone like Mr. Koberger, who has incel tendencies, where there is underlying misogyny. And one would imagine, and this is the part that gets my stomach when I think about this individual, that calculating, cold, merciless element that's obviously present, where there are strong, not diagnosing him, but strong, clearly strong antisocial tendencies, we can see that moving

from the intended victim, and then another, and then another, that is part of that mindset, that pervasive mindset that arises from him wanting to have control of some sort over his environment. And if indeed he is an incel, feeling rejected, feeling unwanted, and that rage that can come with that incel personality type, it is actually terrifying and so unfortunate for these young women. The disturbing theory of the existence of a, quote, kill kit. Kill kit has reared its ugly head. Take a listen to our cut 554, the Gonsalves' again. He was there to kill.

He came in with a kit. I believe he had a kill kit. And you believe that everything right down to the implement of destruction, this large marine knife, that was all planned? All planned. It's inhumane. You wouldn't do these type of things to any living creature, let alone an innocent human being. We've heard of kill kits before. Take a listen to our cut 17B from ABC. We're talking about a prolific serial killer, Israel Keyes, who had kill kits hidden all over the country. And he told agents something they'd never heard before, that he left kill kits or caches buried in several states filled with

everything he'd need to commit a murder. They were in waterproof containers or five-gallon buckets and included guns and different things he could use to dispose of bodies. His strategy? To grab people in remote locations like parks, campgrounds, even cemeteries. You might not get exactly what you're looking for. There's not as much to choose from, in a manner of speaking, but there's also no witnesses, really. There's no one else around. Not just Israel Keyes, not potentially just Brian Koberger that has kill kits. I'm sure you all have heard of BTK, Bind, Torture, Kill, Dennis Rader, the dog catcher killer who's responsible for so many murders. And we're still attributing murders to him take a listen our cut 49b this is his daughter speaking to fox he had hit kits and so we're seeing

with um rex heerman um like handcuffs my father had like um fanny pack fanny packs with like handcuffs and rope ties like bondage gear bandanas in hindsight i actually did see my father's hit kit um from the 85 murder down the street it was a bowling bag um it was like he didn't bowl and so that was weird in hindsight but at the time my dad just had a lot of weird oddity bags around crime stories with nancy grace to cheryl mccall i'm cold case investigative research director cheryl what is a kill kit it's a kit where the person is prepared to do what he thinks needs to be done in a murder scene. It's going to have a weapon.

It may have something to bind or hold the victim in place. It's going to have maybe a tarp, a shovel, anything they want from A to B to commit this crime. There's no question that Koberger came kill ready. He had a mask, a hat, dark clothing, a knife, and a sheath. When they served the search warrant on his parents' house, he had knives and a Glock and, again, this black face mask and black gloves. He had these things. So he absolutely planned this and executed it with this kill kit. What about it, Joe Scott, a kill kit? We've seen it.

We've heard of it. What would Koberger have had in such a kill kit if it did exist? If it did exist, my thought, and this is the big thing because people keep talking about DNA and all these sorts of things. What I would be very interested in, Nancy, is were there any kind of barriers, like clothing barriers, he would have had in there to change with? Something to put distance, like garbage bags, for instance, if you're trying to do a quick change. Because I can tell you this, and forgive me, because this is absolutely the stuff of nightmares.

What was perpetrated within that environment, and it has been alluded to, is an absolute and total bloodbath. There is no way, and I mean no way under God's green earth, that someone could have exited that dwelling without having been just effused with blood. Period. End of story they would have had it all over them because you can't be in this close of contact with living victims where they are fighting against you you're stabbing them repeatedly over and over and over again and then you're going to walk through the house down into that next landing area and repeat this again because those injuries on Xana and Ethan had reportedly been as equally as savage so it I'm not gonna say it's like taking a bucket of paint

dumping it on yourself but you're gonna have blood on you what's happened to all that blood and what happened to everything that was on him did he have the ability to change clothes just outside the house the idea of a kill kit is absolutely going to go to any type of premeditation. Of course, simply walking into the home with a knife sheath shows premeditation. Premeditation, of course, can be formed in the twinkling of an eye, just like that. It's not some long, drawn-out plan, but apparently here there was a long, drawn-out plan. Premeditation, Tara Malik, high-profile lawyer joining out of this jurisdiction, is really key here. Agree or disagree?

Absolutely agree. Absolutely. I mean, it goes to so many things. But, again, you know, this prosecution team is going to have to pick a picture for this jury. And remember, the death penalty is on the table here. The prosecution has indicated that they are going to be seeking the death penalty. So they're going to have to be showing that this was a, you know, this was a crime that was really over and beyond what we would even consider, quote unquote, normal into the realm of absolutely heinous. And to go in and take the lives of four of them is bad enough.

But to go in with this idea that you're going to take multiple lives to have a plan in place, to have this intent really does catapult it into a different category of crime as well. Dr. Carla Manley earlier refer to Brian Koberger as an incel, an involuntary celibate. Now, we've heard that many, many times, that phrase, that phraseology. I guess the single most well-known or notorious incel would be Elliot Rod Rogers, the so-called virgin killer. Take a listen to our cut 3B. On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB. and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut I see inside there. All those girls that I've desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man

if I ever made a sexual advance towards them. While they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes, I'll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male. Yes. After I've annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I'll take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there. Dr. Carla Manley is joining us, clinical psychologist and author of Date Smart, Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly.

Dr. Carla, what is an incel? An incel is a male who is involuntarily celibate. And that's the key piece. It's the involuntary aspect that can make an incel so angry and violent and filled with rage. And in fact, we sometimes talk about incel rage. And there are individuals who are incels who even claim that them being denied their sexual wants is a reverse rape. And that is how distorted their thinking can become because, again, of the feelings of rejection and not getting what they want. And that pursuit of being the alpha male, that man in their dreams who has every woman and

has all of the sorority girls or whatever it is in their mindset that they deserve. They can act out in such heinous ways because they feel deprived and unjustifiably so in their mind. To you, Cheryl McCollum, what evidence, if any, is there that Koberger is in fact an involuntary celibate and incel well i think some of the friends that have come forward to saying that you know he was rejected by women he would go to bars and stare at women and make inappropriate comments that even one of the managers at a local bar had to tell him hey hey, if you are going to say weird, creepy stuff to women, we don't want you back in here. And Kohlberger, you know, tried to say, hey, you've got the wrong

guy, but then never came back to that bar. Some people have claimed that he has reached out over social media and, you know, hit people up on their DMs and never got responses. So there is some evidence that he has not had a steady girlfriend ever. No woman has ever come forward saying that she was a former girlfriend or a current girlfriend. So there's evidence that he, you know, not by his own doing was alone. To Rachel Schilke joining us from the Washington Examiner, agree or disagree regarding evidence that Kober is in fact an incel involuntary

celibate i mean i think there's evidence to point towards it and just kind of what everybody has been saying that kids methods of behavior and just the the interviews that people have given to multiple outlets who are voluntary come voluntarily come forward and given this information. That is quite a heavy label to give somebody if you don't have the evidence to back it up. Yeah, you're right, Rachel Schilke, you're absolutely right. There is evidence that he was removed from one particular assignment and put in another where there were fewer or no women. There is evidence from people that worked with him when he was a teaching assistant that he was very dismissive and very rude, very strict on female students, and there were actually complaints. There is also claims that he would stalk or harass women at bars.

It just goes on and on and on. But you both refer to statements from friends going all the way back to middle school. Take a listen to this from our Fox Nation special on Brian Koberger. Who is he? I am blank is the title. After graduating community college, Koberger moves on to DeSales University, reconnecting with his childhood friend.

To me personally, he really opened up more in his later college years. We were talking more than we talked in high school. He called me fairly often. Biela shares private messages from around this time. One of the main topics of discussion? Women.

And more. So the thing we talked about a lot, the dating scene, it just got kind of just really hard. But he was just having a time, you know, getting ghosted a lot. Talking to a girl and then wondering, oh, why didn't you text back? Ever. But they'd also be like, yeah, I was talking to this girl and this girl was cute and I thought we hit it off and we didn't, I guess. So you'd vent about stuff like that to me.

I think you just felt frustrated is just the biggest word. Frustrated. A feeling Dr. Chris Mahondi believes is common for incels. Guys, the theory that Brian Koberger is an incel partially originates from the fact that according to multiple sources, Koberger tried to reach his victims on social media and was apparently rejected. Take a listen to our cut 562 from Crime Online. Just two weeks before four University of Idaho students were murdered last November, Brian Koberger sent a series of messages to one of the victims on Instagram. An investigator close to the case tells people in late October, an account authorities

believe belonged to Brian Koberger sent a greeting to one of the female victims. And when he didn't get a reply, he sent several more messages to her. The source said he slid into one of the girls DM several times, but she didn't respond. Basically, it was just him saying, hey, how are you? But he did it again and again and again and never got a reply. On top of all of this happened, we are now learning that the judge is trying to close the courtroom. Take a listen to our cut 564 First Amendment lawyer, Jack Griner at Law and Crime. The idea of closing the courtroom entirely that the public can't come in for any purpose, is separate and apart from having cameras in the courtroom, that there has to be a compelling need for the closure and that there are no less restrictive means. So it's up to the state

and the defense, I guess, since they both want the hearing closed, to come up to articulate a compelling need for the closure. To Rachel Schilke, is this true? We know that the trial is not going forward October 2. We knew that as soon as the speedy trial demand was withdrawn. But do you believe that cameras will be banned from the courtroom as well? I think it's heading that way. I was listening to the debate at the court hearing recently, and the judge is bringing up a lot of different speculations from the media

and kind of saying that the media is perpetuating misinformation, disinformation, so having cameras might not be helpful to the jury or to the case at all. You know, I think there's some truth to that. But also, I think that people have a right to see what's going on because this is a case that hits everybody. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend.