Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bryan Kohberger to Face Firing Squad?

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

No word yet on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in Bryan Kohberger's quadruple murder case. Attorneys for the state have 60 days from Kohberger's plea to make a determination. Some of the victims' family members have been vocal in their support of the death penalty. In Idaho, the death penalty can be carried out by lethal injection or firing squad.  Joining Nancy Grace today: Jean Fisher - Former Chief Deputy Prosecutor (33 years) in Ada County, Boise, ID. Former Special Crimes Chief Deputy (specialized in murder, crimes against children, and sexual assault); Director of Curriculum in Building Hope Today   Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills, CA); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive    Chris McDonough - Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective, and Host of YouTube channel: ‘The Interview Room’  Dr. Michelle DuPre - Former Forensic Pathologist, Medical Examiner, and Detective: Lexington County Sheriff's Department; Author: "Homicide Investigation Field Guide" & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide;" Forensic ConsultantRachel 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. Amidst all of the drama and the news, be it false or true, swirling around Brian Koberger, now charged in the murders of four beautiful Idaho students. The big question right now is, will the state seek the death penalty? This as more and more evidence seemingly bubbling up about prior bad acts by Brian Koberger, whether it is going into a colleague's home and rearranging her possessions in order to get her to allow him to install Wi-Fi security cams or possibly taking a neighbor's underwear out of a suitcase and stuffing it in the door of her car. The families of the victims are reacting.

But right now, will the state announce they are seeking the death penalty? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to former homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy. I think this one is pretty clear. My guess is he's seeking the death penalty. Now, behind the scenes, what's happening is he's probably meeting with the defense and saying, show me what you got to try to talk me out of it. Prosecutor under these circumstances will weigh the aggravating versus mitigating circumstances. And this case is so overwhelmingly awful, for lack of a better term. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure

within the DA's office to actually seek the death penalty on them. With me, an all-star panel, but first I want to go to a former chief deputy prosecutor out of Idaho, this jurisdiction, now with Building Hope Today, a nonprofit to help teach new prosecutors how to prosecute complex crimes. You can find Gene Fisher at buildinghopetoday.org. Gene, thank you for being with us. You know, I was just listening to what the former homicide prosecutor, Matt Murphy, said that the state is going to the defense and saying in his words, show me what you've got. Talk me out of it. In other words, do you have anything that is so powerful

it can make a jury return a not guilty or hang and if you do I may take DP off the table in exchange for a plea I'm not sure that's happening but could you explain that process I mean when I handled death penalty cases I basically had the defense lawyer saying don't do it don't do it don't do. But they never showed me any reason not to do it because they didn't want to tip their hand about what their defense would be. Right. So I think I agree with them that there probably is this conversation going on. Remember, he's already been in jail since January.

And if I had a fair guess, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the defences may have already had him. Somebody lined up a psychologist or somebody lined up to come and visit with him and talk to him. They don't have to turn that over to the state, but they can tell you that they're going to do that. Now, on the last big murder case that I had in Idaho, which was also a home intruder who came in, murdered two elderly people in their bed, plus their 54-year-old son. I mean, that's what we did in all of this prep time leading up to and past the grand jury was asking the defense, do you have any mitigating information, any mitigating facts that you really think we ought to know that would stand in the way of the death penalty? And, you know, if you can if you can figure that out in advance, you know, it certainly behooves everybody.

And it depends on the relationship that the prosecutor has with the public defender in this case as well. It's really interesting that you said that, Jane Fisher, because there were certain lawyers, defense lawyers, when I saw them come in, oh no, here comes a big fat lie. They're going to lie to my face and expect me to plead down a case. I've even had a defense attorney, when his client didn't show up for counter call, got another person standing out in the hall come in and pretend to be his client so his client wouldn't go into bond forfeiture and get arrested luckily I had the book in picture and I'm like okay that's not him so some lawyers have a reputation that you cannot trust then there were other lawyers that would come down the hall and go oh great here comes XYZ I bet they've got something to tell me.

And they would, almost every time. And it would affect the plea negotiation or whether you went to trial with the case or took a plea. You're absolutely right. We wonder what's happening behind the scenes. And with me, a homicide prosecutor, former chief deputy prosecutor from Idaho. Gene Fisher, what are the aggravating circumstances in the Coburger jurisdiction on which the prosecutor could seek the death penalty? Well, in this case, it's clearly that there's more than one murder. There's more than deliberation. I mean, more than premeditation.

There's certainly, you're looking at the malice of forethought and the manner in which the murders took place. I mean, looking at those four factors alone, you know, all four of them you can tick off. And that, you know, for the state's point of view, the death penalty as far as the aggravating factors, I think it's really pretty clear. But I think it's also really hard because they're working with four different families.

And even though the families in and of themselves do not get to make the decision, you know, in my experience, they're going to listen to the families. And it would be hard if, you know if two said yes and two said no. I mean, the idea of a death penalty is such a visceral reaction to what we want to have happen. But remember, if they do go for it, it also means that they're all in it together for the next 20 20 30 years because death penalty cases just never end guys we're talking about when and if the state is going to announce they're seeking the death penalty and you heard gene fisher a former chief deputy prosecutor in ada county there in idaho you earlier heard a homicide prosecutor speaking to our friends at News Nation.

Across the country, there are what is called aggravating circumstances. In other words, if any one or more of those circumstances exist, the state may seek the death penalty. The most obvious one, as Gene Fisher pointed out, is more than one body. Mass murder in many jurisdictions is more than one body. Mass murder in many jurisdictions is more than one body. And here there are four. Another one in many jurisdictions is whether the defendant was lying in wait. Why does that matter? If someone is, for instance, sitting outside your house waiting for the right moment to break in and murder you, that signifies that there is the cold blood factor. In other words, they're not angry. You didn't get in a fight in a bar. It's not a sudden heat of the moment killing. They had time to think about it. They had, quote, cold blood. In other words, they could

have rationalized their way out of the murders, which makes them, in the eyes of many, more heinous. And then, of course, there's always the catch-all, especially heinous, especially awful circumstances. All of those are met here if what the state has suggested is true. The family that Gene Fisher brought up up the families involved here what do they want well we know what one family wants take a listen to shannon grave the gonzalez family lawyer speaking to our friends at news nation like every family i think they want justice for um the deaths of the their daughter and maddie and and zanna and ethan so you know it's part of the process um you know the tort claims notice that i filed is just standard procedure um you know

we hope that everything went perfectly and everything did everybody did the right things but if for some reason something went wrong or something uh someone might need to be held accountable for something uh you're you're need to be held accountable for something, you're mandated to file those notices. The Gonzalez family obviously supports the death penalty in this case. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me right now is the breaking news investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner. You can find her on Twitter at Rachel underscore Schilke. Rachel Schilke is joining us.

Rachel, what are they talking about specifically? You hear the Gonsalves family lawyer speaking about filing a tort action against the state. What are they talking about? So basically what they're doing is they're putting in their request that if the prosecutors decide that they want to seek the death penalty, they are saying that we are all for it, is basically a layman term. That's very odd, Jane Fisher, former felony prosecutor in the Idaho jurisdiction, the Coburger jurisdiction. Why would you file a tort action, a civil action, against the state, i.e. the prosecutors, in this case? You know, I don't know. When I read that, it surprised me, and it made me a little sad, in that it presumes in this day and age

that maybe, I suppose, that they think if somebody did something wrong, somebody's going to pay for it somehow. Oh, you mean like if the prosecutor screws up, or one of the homicide... Watch out, Chris McDonough, because I'm coming to you next. Yeah, or the University of Idaho

or the University of Idaho or Washington State University police. I guess they'd have to limit themselves to Idaho. I don't think they've gone to WSU. Or the homicide detective. I mean, I told you one time I had a homicide detective fail to write his name on the outside of the blood we use for the DNA comparison.

And the chain of custody could have been attacked, possibly successfully. And right before trial, I had to have it redone again. Same results, but still an error like that. Is that what you're talking about, Gene Fisher? I really don't know. I haven't really... Me either. I haven't heard of them,

of a victim's family filing a tort just in case. Just in case somebody screwed up. Yeah. I've never heard of it before either because, Gene, when you go into court and you're prosecuting a case, you're representing the victim and the people. You're representing the state. And I like to turn around and see the victim's family on the front row.

Now, there were cases where they weren't. They didn't agree with me. Specifically, when an adult, typically a male, was charged in murdering the mother, very often the adult children refuse to believe it. They sit over behind the father. They sit on the defense side. You can't help that and you've got to go forward with what you believe is true. How does that strike you? I wonder if they're concerned about any particular thing

having gone wrong in the investigation. I don't know if it clearly, I mean, I don't know that it clearly says that. I just think it's the state of where we are today in litigation, quite frankly. And it makes me, it does, it's so frustrating because you do as a prosecutor want to stand up and say, we're going to do everything that we can for justice for the state and for this family even though they file the tort against us of which they're not naming us but just in case they are it just feels it doesn't feel good you know it sounds very well maybe the parents believe they have reason to do this i know that many of them are angry about that gag order and other things. Remember at the beginning, Rachel Schilke with me, breaking news reporter for Washington Examiner. Remember at

the beginning, the families were very upset. They were not, they were saying they were not getting information from the homicide detectives. And maybe there was a reason for that but that's how they felt and so I believe their feelings were justified even if the homicide team detectives had a reason they should have explained that to the family this is why we can't tell you any more information right now and call them every day and give them updates. But they were left, right or wrong, feeling like they were left out and were in the dark. Remember that, Rachel? Yes, I do.

And I remember it being a very sad thing to hear these families go on air and go into these interviews talking about how they didn't really have any information. And even now they're still trying to fight to even to be able to talk about the case. So it's just a really sad situation. Dr. Bethany Marshall is joining us, guys. She is a renowned psychoanalyst joining us out of Beverly Hills at drbethanymarshall.com.

Go ahead, Dr. Bethany. Well, in terms of group psychology, we see this in medicine. We see this in attitudes towards our police across the nation, is that the people who are trying to help us are vilified and blamed if they don't do it perfectly. That's just human nature. It's not, whether it's from motherhood or being a therapist, being a doctor, being a policeman, those of us who try to help others are very familiar with being blamed and vilified if

it doesn't go exactly as the other person had planned. And I think it's a mistake to play into this group psychology, even if you're an attorney. I don't understand the case like the attorneys here do and you do, Nancy, but I think from just a social perspective, it's a mistake to buy into this fact that whenever we don't get exactly what we want from the people who are gathering to help us, we're going to sue, we're going to blame, we're going to attach blame to them because what happens is that everybody who's trying to help them, they're going to be scared now. They're not going to be able to think freely and act freely. Let the people who are trying to help the family help the family in whatever way they think best professionally,

unless there's some egregious error. Two special guests joining us, Chris McDonough, director, and I hear you, Dr. Bethany, I'm going to use what you just said with Chris McDonough, director of Cold Case Foundation, important former homicide detective, investigated nearly 300 homicides. You can find him on YouTube channel The Interview Room or at coldcasefoundation.org. Chris,

I mean, I understand as a crime victim myself, a tangential victim of homicide, how the victim's families are feeling, or at least a little bit how, not totally, because I cannot even imagine losing your child. That said, I mean, it puts the homicide detectives and the prosecutors, they're like walking on pins and needles, afraid for the other foot to drop, like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,

like what is going to happen next? Everything they do is being put under a microscope. But frankly, why shouldn't it be? They should be doing their best. But I imagine it does give them reason to pause. Absolutely, Nancy. I mean, this is a very critical time in this case, in my opinion, because you know more than anybody, you want to walk into that courtroom. And we've said this before, you know, hand in hand, arm in arm with all four of those families. Lock step. Yeah, lock step. And you know what's going to happen.

Defense is going to, in their opening statement, they're going to lay out, hey, even one of the families thinks there's problems here. You're right. Because there's, you know, and they're going to, they're going to leverage that against the family. They could even call family members as witnesses. Yes. I don't want to give them any ideas, but. No, but you and I both know, and everybody on the panel knows, you know, if I was Koberger's attorney, that's, I'm going down that lane. I'm running down that avenue. Yep. Yes, ma'am. And she's got a couple of really smart former homicide guys, you know, on the defense side for him. Really?

Explain that. Explain that, McDonough. Well, she's got a couple of retired homicide guys out of Southern California who I knew years ago out of Riverside. Lots of experience. They are, you know, very skilled at solving crimes. And these are the guys who wrote the affidavits, in my opinion, to circumvent the gag order, you know, to go after, you know, the two surviving witnesses to kind of get the statement out front.

And so that was a smart move. Cunning, maybe. Cunning to treat the surviving victims that way. I don't know that that would be smart, but cunning, absolutely. Much better word. Cunning, very cunning. Guys, we're talking about, is the state going to seek the death penalty? If so, when are they going to announce it? Guys, if they do seek the penalty, let's address that. Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. Do you understand the charge of murder in the first degree? Yes. Do you understand the maximum penalty? Yes. But when he was asked to plead, is Mr. Kober prepared to plead to these charges?

He declined to enter a plea. The court entered a not guilty plea for him and set a trial date of October 2nd. Idaho is one of five states with death by firing squad. You know, I want to circle back. Rachel Schilke joining me, breaking news reporter, Washington Examiner. It was not many days behind us that Koberger stood up and he had been speaking clearly with the judge and then suddenly, cat got its tongue. When it's time to announce not guilty, he wouldn't say a thing.

The lawyer, Ian Taylor, said he's choosing to stand silent. You know what? I've analyzed this up and down every which way, but loose. There was no benefit in that. The court, as the law demands, entered a not guilty plea for him. It doesn't help in bargaining. It's not some part of a scheme or a plan. It's basically, he's a drama queen. It's drama.

That's all that was. Yeah, I would agree. I think there's definitely a dramatic aspect to this case. It's captured so much national attention. It's something I've been following for a long time. And I was even thinking to myself, you know, I'm wondering if he would just plead guilty and bam, the case is over. Like that would be the end of this entire, you know, media circus that's been happening. I think that there is some, I would agree with you, there's no benefit to just standing silent. But I think it's definitely going to fuel

fire to this frenzy that's going to be covering this case. And, you know, Dr. Bethany, he has cable TV behind bars and apparently watching every scintilla of coverage on himself. And he garnered a lot of attention by standing silent and not entering a plea. It's total BS. It's no legal strategy. It didn't help him or hurt him in any way to do that except garner attention. Brian Coburn loves to draw people into his web. That's his MO. Whether as a peeping Tom, whether as killing people, whether he's gathering underwears, trophies, he's always pulling people in.

And what better way to pull people in than to stand silent and let other people guess? And now, of course, what are we doing? We're talking about him. We're second guessing, wondering what it meant. So, you know, I think what happens with these criminals is at a certain point, the BS stops and they have to get off the carnival ride and what they do to try to excite and thrill others and to be at the center of things doesn't work anymore but right now i think it's working in some moderate way because he stood silent and now we're talking about it again

hey uh now one theory is the reason he stood silent is because if he ever does let's just say this goes all the way to a guilty verdict and then we go into death penalty phase it's a bifurcated trial fancy word for two trials you have the guilt innocence trial then you have the sentencing trial he could say that bifurcated sentencing trial I never said I didn't do it. I didn't deny it. I find that disingenuous because he has had his lawyer say he wants to prove his innocence. He can't wait to go to court to be exonerated. That goes all the way back to the extradition hearing. So maybe that's his game. I don't know, but it's going to have little or no effect at all now if the state does seek the death penalty it is death by firing squad i'm very curious gene fisher is there an

alternative in idaho or does it have to be death by the bullet no actually in idaho the preferred method is still lethal injection and then the death by by uh by firing squad was passed by the idaho legislature this last year is an alternative means but because it's been so difficult to get the drugs that we hear about all over the nation for the lethal injection they they opted to go back to the death by the firing squad Squad. So they've got Death by the Firing Squad and then Needle as a backup if they can get the drugs. Okay. Dr. Michelle Dupree joining me,

forensic pathologist, medical examiner, literally wrote the book, Homicide Investigation Field Guide. She shot to the national forefront during the Alex Murdoch double murder trial. Dr. Michelle Dupree, thank you for being with us. As we have this theoretical discussion about are we going to get the death penalty announcement anytime soon and what is the mode of death, can we just have a little recap about what happened to these four victims? Yes, Nancy. These victims were horrifically murdered. They were stabbed many times. There were sharp force injuries. There

were defensive wounds on some of the victims. They had enormous pain and bleeding. This was a horrific crime, just horrific. Explain their stab wounds. The stab wounds, again, the knife that allegedly was used is a knife that is sturdy. It can inflict serious injury, obviously. The knife wounds, there were several on all of the victims. The wounds hit significant organs and veins and vessels and arteries, which caused extensive bleeding. The crime scene was a horrific, bloody massacre, really. It was just a horrific crime.

And we do know, or we believe we know, that the victims were either going to sleep or drowsy at the time but one of the survivors said they heard I think there's someone in here words to that effect so they were awake they were not spared any suffering some of the investigators stated it's the worst thing they have ever witnessed. The worst thing they've ever witnessed. What about it, Chris McDonough, former homicide detective? Well, when you get into that kind of environment like that, immediately you are struck by the brutality of that attack. And in this case, because you have four victims, that brutality is magnified,

you know, a thousand times because you have to calculate out, you know, what was the sequence in relationship to which victim was chosen first. And then of course, you have to recognize that the same weapon was utilized on the second, third and fourth victim. So you have to now say to yourself, what is the rage that is driving from number victim one to victim number four. And you start learning quickly that the perpetrator who has the potential to do this, you look up on the ceiling, Nancy, and you see what's called cast off from each one of those strikes to these particular victims. And you must say to yourself, and you think to yourself, and I have vivid memories of going into those types of scenes that stay with me to this day and I've always asked myself how in the world could this amount of brutality take place in a very small environment and the suspect just walk out of that place and think nothing of it because when you get them in the room, in the interview room later on,

some of these individuals think nothing of it. And Koberger, in my opinion, is one of those individuals who is now on a stage bigger than he's ever expected, but this is what he did expect. He wanted to be front and center to the world and he's getting it guys if the state does decide to seek the death penalty which in idaho is the firing squad or needle when will we find out take a listen to our forensic crime online prosecutors have 60 days from coberger's plea to decide whether they will seek the death

penalty. So far, no decision has been made. If the state does ask for the death penalty, Koberger's attorneys would have to prepare a death defense and the state must find a jury that would be able to oversee a death penalty case, which could possibly push this trial further out than October 2nd. Some are also questioning whether a motion could be filed to move the trial to a different county. According to Idaho Criminal Rule 21, a judge may only grant the change of venue for a trial if an impartial trial cannot be held in the same county or in the quote interest of justice and convenience for the witnesses. Sometimes similar transactions are allowed at trial. I do not believe any prior bad acts are going to come in in the Koberger trial in the case in chief.

Possibly, if there's a conviction, at the sentencing phase. We'll find out about other cases, other instances, incidents that Koberger committed that are similar to the Idaho murders in some way. One thing that will not be part of that is the case of a 45-year-old murdered mom out of his hometown in the Poconos where his family lives, Dana Smithers. Take a listen to Les Trent at Insight Edition. A mysterious development in the case of Brian Kohlberger, accused of murdering those four University of Idaho students. There are reports Brian Kohlberger's father, Michael, testified before a grand jury at this courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania today. His mother, Mary Ann, reportedly testified earlier this week. The grand jury is investigating the death of Dana Smithers, a mother of three who disappeared a year ago. Her body was found in a wooded area near Stroudsburg

in April, about 30 miles from the Kohlberger home. Many legal eagles did not believe the two would be connected. The MOs were so different and you have to look at whether Koberger was even there in the Poconos. Many of us believe the parents of Koberger were called to testify at the grand jury to establish his alibi and rule him out in the Smithers murder. Let me say the Smithers death. We don't have a COD on her yet cause of death but what about this case new evidence that coberger was stalking potential victims months before the murders this just released police body cam video shows a neighbor of the idaho murder victims reporting a bizarre theft of a suitcase from her car. And then I found my underwear like shoved right there. In the cup holder?

Yeah, and I took it out, but it was in there. It happened eight months before the murders. Look in the distance. That's the house where the four students were stabbed to death. There is a direct progression from smaller petty crimes to larger felonies. And more. Listen. Hey, how's it going good okay so i this morning i just got home from um oasis yesterday and this morning i like walked upstairs and my suitcase was inside but i remember leaving it in my car i was like i was like hey did you bring my suitcase up? And she's like,

yeah, it was in the middle of the road. And I was like, hmm, that's weird. Oh, your suitcase was in the middle of the road? Yeah, it was like back over here, and I had it in the back of my car. Oh, interesting. I was like, maybe I forgot and just left it out. Right. And then I take it inside, and I open it, and all the stuff

that I had, oh, I locked it. I should have my keys. But all the stuff I had up here, all my pay stubs, the stuff I had in the center console, my sunglasses I was literally wearing yesterday were all shoved inside my suitcase. And, like, it was, like, zipped back up. So everything that you had in your front seat was now in your suitcase? Okay. And then there's, like, a shoe print over here. And then there's, like, my fuse box under my steering wheel is, like, opened.

And no chance someone's playing a prank on you yeah i didn't think so i don't see why anyone i know would have been doing that yeah but like and then i found my underwear like shoved right there in the in the cup holder yeah and i took it out to dr bethany marsh, a psychoanalyst joining us out of Beverly Hills, you have that incident and another incident that we have been discussing. Take a listen to our cut 424, our friends at Dateline. Our source says Kohlberger had befriended a woman in his graduate criminology cohort. The woman had returned to her apartment one evening and found some things amiss. Items moved from where she'd left them.

In the kitchen. In the bath. Quite bizarre. So, what did she do? Well, our source tells us that since nothing had been taken, the woman did not call the police. Instead, she called her new friend,

Brian Koberger, who our source says volunteered to come over and take a look. And he soon recommended the installation of a video security system. And he, Koberger, volunteered to do the work. Dr. Bethany Marshall, the similarity in that alone, in that case, with the female colleague from Washington State University, is in my mind, except for the murder, a fingerprint. You have the thrill of planning it. You have identifying your victim. You have the cat and mouse of building up her trust so she would be manipulated into coming to him to install the security system. The entering the home, the thrill that must have been for him if in fact

these allegations are true, paralleled against emailing, contacting the Idaho students, some of them, on social media, following them, going to their place 11 or 12 times before the murders, running into them, we believe, or watching them where they worked or went to school, ultimately entering their home. We haven't connected the underwear incident to Koeberger yet. And there's not a lot of security video cameras in the King Road area. So let's talk about the parallels in these three cases. Well, the parallels, obviously there's an offending pattern. And the offending pattern three cases? Well, the parallels, obviously, there's an offending

pattern. And the offending pattern you described so beautifully, but the underlying motives, I think, are being a sex predator and a sex addict with a prolific fantasy life where he has to choose victims to match up to his internal masturbatory fantasies. All of these victims have something in common. They are unaware that he's watching them. He's probably watching them a lot, Nancy. And what he begins to prey upon is their femininity, whether it's moving underwear around, feminine items, or in the case of the four students, the three women who were

murdered, you know, taking a look at their pictures and maybe even using those as a part of a sort of like his own personal pornography of sorts, or also gathering them as trophies. Now, I think what distinguishes the four Idaho murders from the prior two incidents that you're talking about is that these women rejected him in his mind. The students, the Idaho students, he DM'd them, he tried to contact them. They didn't get back to him. And this is where the pattern of watching, playfully toying, like you said, cat and mouse, using them to satisfy sexual fantasies, then began to develop into rage and the desire to commit a sadistic homicide because sadism and sexual predatory behavior do go hand in hand. So he could no longer use pictures and spying and looking and moving underwear around as a part of his sexual fantasies. Now he had to inflict pain to enhance his sexual fantasies. One more quick thing, Nancy, that the stuffing of the underwear into the cup holder, I see this may be unseemly and unprofessional, but the first thing I thought

was stuffing a penis into a vagina, that he was already, you know, practicing a rape act when he did that, because that is just such a strange thing to do. And also, when he gathered some of the items from the car into the suitcase, I also wondered if he wasn't preparing to take those home as his new, you know, war chest of trophies. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace To Gene Fisher, former felony prosecutor in the Coburger jurisdiction, Idaho. If and when the prosecution announces they are seeking the death penalty, and I do expect them to make that announcement within the next 60 days, how would you foresee the state using similar transactions at the death penalty phase, such as manipulating the colleague, stalking her, going by her place, figuring out if she's home,

a lot of planning, gaining access to her apartment. Did he gain access to the King Road home in the same way? Going there when she wasn't there, going into King Road when he thought everybody was asleep? How long he had been cultivating the relationship with the colleague? How long had he been stalking the Idaho victims going in for sexual gratification according to psychoanalysts and therapists that this violence and the stalking is hand in hand and sexually gratifies him in some way. Going into, we believe, the colleague's bedroom, going into the Idaho victim's bedrooms, and ultimately performing a crime on the female victim. Three of the Idaho victims are female in the same geographical area,

in the same type housing, gaining entry into a residence. I mean, there's so many similarities, but the one is cut short because the female colleague was not murdered. She was manipulated into allowing him to set up the security surveillance. Do you believe that that instance can be used as a similar transaction at the death penalty aggravation phase? Yeah, I think that the one instance that you're talking about from the WSU student colleague that can be directly linked to, you know, co-burder would be

used. I, you know, the instance that they're talking about where the girl, you know, had her luggage, you know, her car broken into and all of that. I mean, I highly doubt that they will be able to use that part of it. Unless we find out he took some of the Idaho victim's underwear, which would then make it more of a similarity and more relevant. But I think they will have had so much more information by then as well. If it goes into the death penalty phase, then the defense does have an obligation to turn over whatever it is that they intend to use in mitigation. penalty phase, then the defense does have, you know, has an obligation to turn over whatever it is that they intend to use in mitigation.

But they will have learned so much more about, all of them will learn so much more about his past, his history, you know, the things that you've already heard about, about his life in Pennsylvania, you know, his behavior there. I mean, all of that the state will be able to use in its aggravation test part of the trial. It is a matter of progression, a progression from Chris McDonough from peeping Tom, sending emails on social media, bumping into them at work it leads up to murder and again

that is not statistical that is anecdotal that very often we see killers start as for instance peeping toms absolutely and you know from an investigative aspect here, you know, just kind of overlaying in the psychology of how this guy's operating. If we even go back to, you know, the earlier, just the initial female contacts at the bars in Pennsylvania, where he, you know, if we tie that type of behavior into, okay, I've been rejected. Well, he has this fuel with inside of himself at those moments. So that fuel has to be expelled somewhere. So I think there's a high probability of many type of voyeurism events that we just aren't aware of yet, even in Pennsylvania, and that a lot of those terabytes of data that's been turned over to the defense

I think there's going to be that footprint along into all of this you know fantasy based problem that he was building and then eventually that led up potentially if he is the killer to the murder of these four college students. And Rachel Schilke joining us, investigative news reporter with the Washington Examiner. What more can you tell us about Koberger as of today? Now, basically, he's going to trial on October 2nd. I actually did some calculating and prosecutors have until, I believe, July 22nd or 21st of this year to determine whether or not they're seeking the death penalty.

So, you know, right now he is sitting in jail and he is awaiting his fate. He's probably listening right now, listening to you talking, Madam Rachel Schilke. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friends. This is an iHeart Podcast.