Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bryan Kohberger's PARENTS TESTIFY IN DEATH OF PENNSYLVANIA WOMAN

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Bryan Kohberger's parents have been subpoenaed by a Pennsylvania grand jury to testify in connection with the May 2022 disappearance of a woman missing nearly a year. Dana Smithers was last seen leaving a friend's house in Monroe County late in the evening.  Almost a year later, her remains were recovered in Stroudsburg, about a 30-minute drive from the Kohberger family home in Albrightsville.  Michael Kohberger is expected to testify in court today. Maryann Kohberger has already testified.  Joining Nancy Grace today: Tara Malek - Bosie, ID Attorney and Co-owner of Smith + Malek; Former State and Federal Prosecutor.; Twitter: @smith_malek  Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA.; Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women; Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, and Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital; Voted My Buckhead’s Best Psychiatric Practice of 2023 Sheryl McCollum - Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder and Host: Zone 7; Twitter: @ColdCaseTips Chris McDonough - Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective (worked over 300 homicides in a 25-year career) & Host of YouTube channel: The Interview Room                     Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet;" Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;" Twitter: @JoScottForensic   Dave Mack – CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Breaking news in the prosecution of Brian Koberger, charged in the four murders of four beautiful University of Idaho students. In the last hours, we learn Koberger's mother has already testified in front of a Pennsylvania grand jury, and his father is set to testify over their strenuous objections. What does it have to do with? Well, the murder of a woman with three children, the youngest being age seven, Dana Smithers, who goes missing from the same county where Koberger lived with his family, there in the Poconos, just before he leaves for Washington State University.

Why are Koberger's parents being forced to testify in a grand jury murder investigation in Pennsylvania? 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, I want to go out to the founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute, the star of a new podcast, Zone 7, Cheryl McCollum. Cheryl, of course, a grand jury has two arms, investigative and charging. The charging arm is when they indict you and hand down a true bill or a no bill. They don't charge you. The investigative part is when they take a matter under consideration. They subpoena documents, objects, people, all sorts of evidence,

and then they decide if there should be a charge. We don't know whether this grand jury is acting in a capacity of investigating and ruling out Koberger or investigating preparing to charge Koberger in relation to the murder of Dana Smithers. What do you make of it? I think they are checking out his alibi. When he says he has an airtight alibi, let's say his parents were his alibi. They're going to, you know, talk to them individually and make sure that their story lines up with his story. I think this is absolutely investigative. All right, let's analyze the facts as we know them. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now to Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State

University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and star of a hit new podcast, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, do you differ in your opinion? What is the evidence? You have always maintained that Koberger's first murders were not the Idaho students. Yeah, I have, because it was such a flourish when you think of it, that this individual would go in and butcher these four students at this one time. And a lot of people will say, well, he was just surprised. He wasn't anticipating. This guy anticipates everything. Like surprised about what? That there were more than one victim or that there were more than one person that they were targeting, that he was targeting. So I think that he had full awareness. He had

been surveilling this area for some time. Most of these people that start off that have their beginnings, start off doing things like engaging in things like peeping Tomary or attempting to steal underwear and those sorts of things. So I don't know that it extends out to the idea that his first interaction of something nefarious was necessarily a homicide, but I think that there was certainly a dark side. Whether or not this woman is one of his victims or a potential victim of his remains to be seen because we need more information from her autopsy. Well, it's going to be tough because as we know, her remains were so decomposed, she had to be identified through her dental records. So we also don't have a cause of death. But speaking of

underwear to Chris McDonough, director at the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective and host of YouTube channel The Interview Room. Chris McDonough, thank you for being with us along with Cheryl, Joe Scott and our other panelists. Speaking of underwear, I hear where Joe Scott Morgan is going, and I agree, yet disagree with him. This is anecdotal. This is not statistical, but I noticed in so many rape files and murder files, if you look far back enough into a defendant's record, criminal history, and you get their juvenile records, you very often will see peeping Tom, trespassing, minor offenses that were sex related, trespassing, going into somebody's bedroom, trespassing, going into their car and rifling

through their lipstick and their stuff they've got in their car, peeping Tom, looking into a woman's window while she's taking a bath or changing clothes, or really just sitting there on the sofa reading a book or watching TV. That's peeping Tom. And it escalates. It progresses to stalking, to an aggravated battery, to a rape, to a sodomy, to a murder. It progresses. Like we go from pre-K to graduating college, they go from peeping Tom to a full-on quadruple murder. That's what I'm talking about.

Underwear, underwear, underwear. Remember the incident of the neighbor in Idaho regarding her underwear. Yes, the underwear that was found in the car door of the young college student next to where the victims were ultimately discovered. Those are the types of incidents, Nancy, that we've been talking about where those are kind of what we call pre-incident indicators up to the big point uh up to the i knew you'd have a big word for it as i often say to jackie why use one word when you could use 50. okay what did you call it pre-incident what indicators right these are these are behaviors before I call them baby steps. Yes, ma'am. And so these are behaviors that are before the crime.

And if we look at this particular incident now, I agree with Cheryl and and both Scott. I mean, where you have a grand jury potentially as an investigative probe here but if we go back and we narrow this down pretty quickly if we have to give this uh dana smithers the woman uh that's been discovered there we've got to give her the same uh look as we did the four students in idaho And the first thing that came to me immediately to me is the crime scene, which that's what we call the disposal site. And it's a body dump is what we would call it. And Cheryl and everybody here knows what I'm talking about. It's right off of the over a railing by a freeway entrance. And it's across the street from a multi three-story unit hotel the address is 100 park avenue in banger pennsylvania and if you go to google earth and you look at it and you look at

the photographs of where the police are searching and then you look at this crime scene as a whole this area the next thing you would want to look at is what we call a contact site. Where does a suspect and the fantasy builds, it builds, and he arbitrarily comes across this victim, you know, walking or because it sounds like she left her house at a certain point, etc. And so those are the kind of things we want to look at here as this information starts to unfold further about Dana. Okay, let's talk about what we know about Dana, because this is what I would be looking at. Let me circle back to Cheryl McCollum before I go to Tara Malik joining us out of the Idaho

jurisdiction, veteran trial lawyer, partner in Smith and Malik, former state and federal prosecutor. I want to talk to her about what a grand jury could be doing. Of course, it's secret. That makes it sound so nefarious. But all grand juries are in secret. Not just one grand jury, but all grand juries are held in secret. Cheryl McCollum, I would be looking right now at social media.

I would be looking at whether Koberger had any connection to her on social media. I would be looking at whether Koberger had any connection to her on social media. That is how we think he first identified the four Idaho slave victims, the girls anyway. That's what I would be looking for, a similar MO, modus operandi, method of operation, Cheryl. That's absolutely right. One thing that I'm curious about, Nancy, we have three potential crime scenes. So when the victim is leaving her friend's house, which is only three doors down, she has her cell phone in her hand. Her cell phone is then found in her home. So was he laying in wait? Did he bum rush her? How did he get her out of the house? We then, he must have had a vehicle, we would think, to transport her to the body disposal site.

And then the dumping site would be our third one. I would try to connect somebody to all three of those sites. She was caught on ring camera. Possibly he was too, or his vehicle. Again, I would be combing, if they still have it that is coming surveillance videos from that date May 28 2022 remember the four slays occurred November let's see May June July August September October November six months later coming all of the surveillance video at gas stations, at the motel that Chris McDonough just mentioned, at the interstate ramps, at red lights, everywhere I could find it

to see who with whom she hooked up. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Please join us now on Fox Nation for a brand new investigation, Parallels of Evil, the Bundy and Idaho Killings. In this gripping special investigation, we bring together an incredible panel of guests who analyze disturbing similarities of evil between these horrible crimes. We speak with two female Ted Bundy survivors, Karen Pryor and Cheryl Thomas,

who describe their life before and after they were victims of Ted Bundy. We also speak with the renowned private investigator, Bill Warner, who worked in the cases, and Ted Bundy's defense attorney, John Henry Brown. We travel to Moscow, Idaho, to speak with Washington State University students and interview neighbors of Brian Koberger. One neighbor shares exclusive insights about the suspect in the Idaho killings, Brian Koberger. Don't miss Parallels of Evil, the Bundy and Idaho killings, streaming now exclusively on Fox Nation. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Now, another thing, let's follow her movements. Follow her movements that evening. You know, let's start with our cut 451, Jackie.

Neighbor Tara Sione says Dana Smithers came to her home late the night of the festival. They only lived a few houses from each other, and the visit was nothing unusual. Sione tells Dateline that Smithers was smoking, and that was something she only saw Smithers doing when she was nervous or on edge. Smithers invited Sione to her home, but Sione declined as she was tired. Smithers went home around 11 p.m. Her departure captured on Sione's ring camera. She had her phone in her hand. That was the last time anyone saw Dana Smithers. So she was at the friend's house after a local festival, and she had only her phone because she walked to the friends house just a couple of doors down from where she, Dana Smithers, lived with

her seven year old daughter and her mother. Festival? What festival? Take a listen to our cut four five zero. Dana Smithers grew up in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania with her sister Stacy who describes her sister as gregarious. Stacy tells Dateline that Smithers is fun-loving with a very boisterous laugh. Dana Smithers is a mother of three, to a 25-year-old son, a 23-year-old daughter, and a 7-year-old daughter. The day she went missing, Smithers spent the day with her youngest daughter and the girl's father at a nearby festival. The father and Smithers were no longer a couple but maintained an amicable relationship for their daughter. Back home after the festival, Dana Smithers went down the street to speak to her neighbor of 16

years, Tara Sione. So she, Dana Smithers, is at this festival with her daughter, seven years old, her ex, they say they have an amicable relationship. They leave for the evening. After spending the day there, she goes home. Her seven-year-old is at home with the grandma, Dana's mother. She walks down the street to visit with friend Tara. She leaves Tara's home and she spotted around 11 p.m. on the ring doorbell. You can see her very clearly walking away with her phone in her hand. Here is the rub. Her cell phone and keys and her meds that she never failed taking are at home. So where does she go without her cell phone. And I want to go out to Tara Malik joining us out of the Idaho jurisdiction. Tara, a grand jury, as I said, is investigative and charging. What do you make of

both the parents, both of Koberger's parents being called to testify in front of that Pennsylvania grand jury? And I'd also like to point out that the body is found in the same county where the parents, Coburger's parents live. They're in the Poconos. It's Monroe County. So that is a coincidence. It's really hard to ignore. Do you agree? Yeah, I agree. I think it's very odd. I think their location, their geographic location, the timing of when this occurred right before Koberger was going off to Washington University, I think all of that is highly suspicious and problematic for them. them took the fifth or pleaded the fifth during the grand jury proceedings. Already, we've got some suspicions with dad. Why was he, you know, assisting Koberger as he drove cross country back to Pennsylvania and a really weird and circuitous kind of route. So I think it's a it's an odd position for them to be in. Repeatana smithers the murder victim last

although we don't have a cause of death yet but i find it really hard to believe she goes off to a wooded area and just dies of natural causes smithers last seen alive leaving friends home in monroe county the same county where coberger lived with his parents in Albrightville, near Albrightville, before moving cross-country to pursue a doctorate at WSU. That move proves fatal because only 9 to 10 miles away from his apartment in Pullman, there at Washington State, are the four murder victims. What more do we know about Dana Smithers' disappearance that night? Take a listen to our friends at crimeonline.com and 452.

Smithers' phone, car keys, and medication were later found at her house. After Smithers was reported missing, the Stroud Area Regional Police Department conducted searches. About a month after her disappearance, the Pennsylvania State Police joined the search of the park down the street from Smithers' home. Cadaver dogs were also brought in, but nothing was found. Dana is about 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 160 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a red shirt with black pants and white shoes. What more do we know? Take a listen. Our cut 454. Our friends at WBRE. 45-year-old Dana Smithers has been missing for nearly a month now. She was last seen here on

Stokes Avenue. I spoke to her daughter-in-law about what Dana was doing that day and when they decided to call police. Someone doesn't just disappear. You don't just vanish out of the air and are never seen again. Breanne Farino is the daughter-in-law of Dana Smithers, a Stroudsburg woman who's been missing. Dana is very outgoing. She is the type of person who will start up a conversation with you in the grocery store and like you just made a lifelong friend.

She is very outgoing. She is very, like she can make anybody laugh. And more in 455 from our friend, Sydney Costas. Dana went to a street festival at a local restaurant with her six-year-old daughter. Later that night, she walked a few houses down to a friend's home on Stokes Avenue. That's when she was last seen on a ring camera after 11 p.m. The next morning, her cell phone and medication left behind at her home with no sign of Dana. Her purse, her wallet, her car, everything that she would bring,

you would bring with you anywhere you go is at the house. Dana's family reached out to Stroud Area Regional Police after no one heard from her for two days. Dana was last wearing black jeans and a burgundy shirt. Perino says each day brings more discouragement and they need the public's help to find her. Someone has to know something. She has children, she has a small child, and she deserves to have her mom in her life. To Dr. Angela Arnold, a renowned psychiatrist joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, you can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com.

Dr. Angie, thank you for being with us. And once again, when the family approaches local police to tell them Dana is missing, they say, she's a grown woman. She can go away for a night without calling her mother. Why? Why? And why? I mean, Nancy, can't these people watch your show and learn something? Right? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that screwed this whole thing up. Sure. And can you imagine all the other things that it screwed up?

It's just, it's such an excuse. And it's not the way these things should be handled. Because as we have talked about time and time again on your show, people have patterns of behavior. So if someone goes against that pattern of behavior, then other people know it's a problem that she's missing. And they want help as fast as possible. And they should be able to get that help. Patterns of behavior, patterns of behavior. Her mother and sisters go to police and they're told hey she's a grown woman why do they always say this Cheryl they say some you

know derivative of she's probably off with her a new boyfriend wink wink I mean stop especially when you look at she left behind medication that she takes every day she left behind her keys she had no money she didn't take her wallet she didn't take a car she didn't take her wallet. She didn't take a car. She didn't take a change of clothes. And she left behind her seven-year-old. Those are patterns you can't ignore. This is not somebody that just took a powder. This isn't somebody that just wanted to start a new life. That is almost never the case. And we have another, let's just say, monkey wrench in the works to Joe Scott Morgan, professor forensic and death investigator. We can't get a COD, cause of death.

Take a listen to our cut 456 WNEP. The coroner has identified the skeletal remains found last week in the Pocono. His officials say the remains are that of Dana Smithers from Stroudsburg, who went missing last May. The 45-year-old woman was last seen on surveillance video leaving a friend's home. A search at the time came up empty, but last week, a decomposed body was found in a wooded area of Stroudsburg near the on-ramp to Interstate 80. The Monroe County coroner says more tests are needed to determine how Smithers died. And one more thing, Jessica Morgan. Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com and 453.

Dana Smithers' remains were discovered by a Stroudsburg Borough employee in a wooded area near the Interstate 80 east on off-ramp at Park Avenue. A forensic odontologist helped confirm the identity of the badly decomposed body using dental records. An autopsy has been conducted, but results are pending further testing. Okay, I don't mean this in a personal way at all, but I don't put a lot of stock in forensic odontology. In other words, identifying a defendant by his bite mark on a person's body because Joe Scott, the flesh, human flesh is movable and pliant. It's like biting into jello and claiming, hey, I can see a bite, a bite mark that I can now convict somebody with. No, unless you've got a really identifiable bite mark. Remember Ted Bundy had this weird tooth.

If you look at the bite mark, it looks like it's coming from the eye tooth on the right side of his mouth, right beside his front teeth. It just kind of sticks out. You know, like people have that weird little toe that sticks out on the side. No offense, Jackie, but, but I mean, that's very identifiable. So I don't put a lot of stock in trying to convict somebody on odontology, but in this case,

we're not just talking about a bite mark. We're not talking about a bite mark. We're talking about identifying her on her dental records, not some unusual tooth configuration. Explain. Yeah. Odontology, as it applies to bite mark, is more art than it is science. It's highly subjective. That's nicely put. But, however, when it comes to identifying bodies, it is still very reliable because, you know, we go through stages with our teeth throughout our lives where we have fillings,

we have restorations, we have extractions, we have rotations in our teeth, replacements, bridges, caps, all those sorts of things that make us uniquely identifiable through our dentition. So, in that sense, it is still highly reliable. I would have thought that probably their fallback position would have been to harvest DNA, potentially from a tooth. They still had viable biological sample in order to do that. But I got to tell you, Nancy, what I'm truly interested in in this case is going to be, you know, the big mystery here, COD, cause of death. When we think about Koberger, and we've been talking about him relative to this, we know for

fact what the cause of deaths were relative to those four souls out in Idaho, and it was sharp force injury. Sometimes that's very difficult to determine relative to decomposed bodies. They have to go an extra mile for this. Can I just break it down, please? You're making my head hurt. Oh, I'm sorry. When a body, you're not sorry. I know you. Hold on. Let me put it in a nutshell you've got a decomposed body you can't determine cod if it's a knife wound and you want to compare method of death to the four victims in idaho you're looking for a knife wound the only way you're going to find it on a badly decomposed

body is if the knife nicked a bone well that all depends on how far down the road it is as far as decomposition. You can still appreciate knife wounds even a month down range. And from what I'm hearing, that's the neighborhood we're in. But obviously, they didn't see that. They haven't released that information. It's difficult if this was, say, an asphyxial death. That can be kind of difficult to do. Gunshot wound would be kind of evident,

particularly if it was to the head. There's a lot of evidence here. Because the bullet would go through the bone. Well, through the bone, through the skull, perhaps. Maybe find the bullet. Yeah. And hopefully out there, Nancy, they would have gone around the body with a metal detector. Hopefully they didn't just look down and say, okay, we've got a decomposed body. It's adjacent to a highway.

Maybe it's just a homeless person that was camping out. Hopefully that's not the attack that they took. I'm hoping that they went out there and did a grid search relative to a metal detector to look and see if there were any popped off rounds out there, any kind of projectiles or spent brass that was left behind. Methodology here, though, is going to be key, I think, and also any kind of videography relative to, you guessed it, this car, a Hyundai perhaps.

How long had it been? Did they capture all the CCTV stuff? Because it's not like this was done in isolation out in farm farm country uh you know chris had mentioned that this is adjacent to an interstate this is a dump site and he's right on the money with that this is in fact a dump site not a lot of care was taken here no effort apparently was taken to bury a body here which you know that takes time and it takes tools. There's no indication of that.

This is a surface recovery that they have out there. Hey, Nancy, can I jump in? Yeah, I want to clarify something. Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Wasn't Dana Smithers' body found more like a year later, not a month later? It was a year later. She went missing last time she was seen, April 28th, a year ago. And then she was just recovered.

Okay, Cheryl McCollum, jump in. I was just going to say, depending on the weather and things like that, her clothing could still be somewhat intact, and her shirt could have shown potential stab wounds. The shirt would have injuries indicative of that as well. You know, another issue that we keep hearing is that there are different MOs. This was, this occurred outdoors. We don't know that Dana Smithers was killed outdoors.

We believe this could have been a dump site. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm trying to make comparisons and also distinguish Dana Smithers' death from the Idaho students' murders. So we're looking very carefully at the MOs. We don't know Smithers was killed outside. Again, that was most likely a dump site. She may have been killed inside a structure. What structure? Maybe the motel that we hear Chris McDonough describe. Speaking of similarities, what about it, Chris? You know, Nancy, one other thing to consider also, just to kind of dovetail on all the conversation here, is right where this body is found, there is a bank right next door.

If you look closely on Google Earth, you can see what appears to be two exterior video cameras. And then across the street is a Sunoco gas station. And then we have the hotel. So to Scott's point earlier and Cheryl's, those are solid points because this individual wants to lower their risk if we talk about Kohlberger, because he just graduated hypothetically with this degree in technology. And he went through so many steps in the Idaho case, if it's him, to cover that track, it would really be out of character for him to kind of, you know, just go to this step where, you know, he kills this individual at a different location, which is one crime scene, then moves it to a secondary crime scene, the body, and dumps

her over the railing here just before he gets onto the freeway, hypothetically. So I don't know if this is fitting him as much as the behavior that we already know about. And it's in evidence. And this behavior that we're seeing here with that hotel across the street, in my mind, it opens up a variety of other options okay one thing um i want to know if this changes anyone's opinion everybody jump in not just joe scott morgan although you did bring it up joe scott the the time of discovery of dana smithers was a year later not a month later does that change your opinion regarding the degree of decomposition of her body? Yeah, yeah, it does. And I misspoke. She would be in an advanced state of decomposition. And so

there would be little or no soft tissue left. Exactly. So the dental records are a must, unless you want to extract DNA from a nuclei of a hair or the tooth. Or, as Cheryl pointed out, we may be able to get something off the clothing. I don't know. The body and the clothing have been outside for so long. I'd be curious, is she still clothed or was she unclothed? We're trying to also establish where was Coburger on the day she goes goes missing, May 28. Everybody jump in with your knowledge. Okay. I need everybody. We know Jackie pulled up his actual graduation program and he got his major in criminology, not IT or tech, but criminology. He's steeped in criminal behavior. He graduated

May 21, 2022 at DeSales. Okay. Then he goes across the country to Washington State University and ultimately to Idaho. Now, had he already left by May 28 to go stake out a new apartment or even move to Washington State University? He was already admitted, but his classes there did not start until August. So what is his so-called airtight alibi. Also, regarding M.O., yes, we look for the same fingerprint type of murder. But I mean, let's look at Ted Bundy, okay, because the comparisons, which you can see on our new investigation on Fox Nation, parallels of evil between Bundy and Koberger, two surviving female victims speak to us. We believe Bundy had at least three surviving victims. We know that it was in a college town in a structure of a house as opposed to an apartment or a high-rise, the use of violent force, female victims in the

dark of night. My list of comparisons goes on and on and on. Stalking, both getting their grad degree, just always thinking you're smarter than everybody else. Koeberger and Bundy, both notorious for that. But for the purposes of our conversations today, Ted Bundy murdered people in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado. So, the

disparate murder scenes do not concern me at all with Koeberger. Pennsylvania, the body's found in the same county where his parents live before he moves to Washington State? That's not a concern at all. I'll take a listen to our Cut 457 regarding Ted Bundy's MO. Serial killer Ted Bundy admitted to killing more than 30 young women and girls

in a cross-country spree that spanned four years. That number is thought to be higher. Bundy's victims came from several states, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Florida, Idaho, and California. It's not known when Bundy began committing crimes, but Karen Sparks of Washington was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted with a metal rod in 1974. That year, about one woman a month disappeared. Many were college students. In August 1974, Bundy attended the University of Utah Law School, and a number of the murders happened around that time and it brings to mind another serial killer um israel keys who murdered people all across the country he actually kept kill kits hidden across the country that he could use to commit murders and hide evidence take a listen

to our cut 16 our friends at abc keys Keyes traveled the country from Alaska to Vermont looking for people to kill totally at random and funding his crimes by robbing banks. The FBI has now retraced his steps, a long list of dates and locations since 2001 when they believe he may have killed repeatedly. They so far have eight confirmed murders and rapes, including a couple in Essex, Vermont, four others in Washington state, and one more on the East Coast with the body hidden in New York. Ishmael Keyes got on my radar when he kidnapped and murdered a young Alaskan barista, Samantha

Koenig, by forcing her out of her coffee stand and sex assaulting her brutally and then murdering her after a failed ransom attempt. Take a listen to our cut 18 from Investigation Discovery Dark Minds. His usual system was to travel far away from his home, use cash, turn his phone off, leave no record of his presence in usually a small town where no one knew him, to abduct, kill, and then to leave, to be hundreds of miles away from the scene by the time that that local authorities even knew that anyone was missing. For the courier murders, Keyes flew from Anchorage to Chicago, then drove a rental car a thousand miles to Vermont.

After killing them, he drove another few hundred miles to dump the murder weapon in a lake. Then he backtracked to Chicago and flew home to Alaska. I chose that sound for a significant reason, and that is Koberger studied these serial killers and years of saturating himself in the criminal minds of killers, of serial killers like Bundy, like Israel Keyes. So committing a murder in one jurisdiction and then going 2,000 miles like Israel Keyes did to Washington State would not surprise me at all. Think about it, Cheryl McCollum. Nancy, not only did he study it,

he seemed to mimic at least some of what we're witnessing, where he might have waited until he got to his new home in Washington State to commit the murders in Idaho. We know he also, you know, had a potential chance to really study Bundy. He followed Bundy, Washington State, then Idaho. That's something we know Bundy did. We know Israel Keyes studied Bundy. We know that he had access to, you know, get to the point of having a PhD that not only did he study these folks, he went as far as to have the questionnaire about what it felt like. How did you choose a victim? How did you, you know, drive away? All of those things, he's getting ready.

It seems like he's preparing and has knowledge on a much different level than most people would even in a PhD program. He's studying something very specific. So, you know, choosing your victim, how did it make you feel, and how did you get away? And to you, Justice Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, death investigator, I agree with what Cheryl just said, and I want to point out that Koberger, we know that Brian Koberger knew to travel to cover his tracks. Remember the night of the murders? He drove a long, winding, circuitous route. I know because I drove the exact route at night when he could have just driven. Nine minutes to his home. In a Pullman.

He drove all the way around. And it's dark. There's nobody there. You go for 20 minutes. Without seeing a single light. He chose to do that. To distance himself. From the murder scene.

So we know that he is. again, steeped in the study of serial killers. He is. And the infamous loop that you mentioned where CCTV images were captured. And again, we go back to the Hyundai. That is part and parcel of what they do. You even go back to the Hyundai. That is part and parcel of what they do. You even go back to Sam Little, the infamous serial killer who traveled all over the country, Nancy, as you well know, to avoid. And it seems counterintuitive because a lot of these people, when you hear about them, they always say, the kind of rote statement is always, they hunt in the areas best, you know, and that's kind of a Hollywood thing that's thrown out there.

And many of them do, but many of them don't either. You can't apply that logic to every single case. Again, I go back to. This is an area that with which he was familiar. Yeah, it was an area that that he was very familiar with and so but you know we began to think about you know Idaho and out when he got this appointment to Wazoo out there uh how familiar was he with that area well you got his phone pinging all over the place you know prior to that and let me tell you one more thing if he's a PhD student he's he's in his first semester out there. Nancy, when you're a Ph.D. student, it's like being in an indentured servitude state.

How in the world he had time to go and leave that campus and then cruise around another university. It doesn't go to this idea of this kind of scholarly pursuit where you kind of live this monastic existence, particularly your first semester, because all eyes are on you. So what's the focus here? The focus is perhaps, perhaps to target somebody, to target multiple people, to learn how they live, where they live, what are their activities going forward, and to begin to understand them, particularly if you're a hunter. Well put. Very well put. Tara Malik joining us, high profile lawyer out of the Idaho jurisdiction at Smith and Malik. Tara, let's just get right down to it.

My interest as it stands right now in the Dana Smithers case. Of course, I want to find a killer. If in fact she was a murderer, of course, that goes without saying. But how it relates to Brian Koberger. What is the law on the use of similar transactions in Idaho as it relates to a murder trial? Well, there's a 404B rule, which is other wrongs, crimes, and acts. And with advance notice, the state can file what's called a 404B motion and say, judge, we've got evidence of a similar act or crime, and they'll

try and bring this information in. So depending on how this grand jury testimony goes by the parents and what the grand jury finds, I would expect to see a motion by the state to introduce some of that evidence in and show similarities and show patterns. I mean, the state here is going to try and show that this was not, you know, nothing about what co-brugger did was a mistake. You know, that perhaps with this woman, and we don't know enough yet, there may be evidence that he was hunting her. I mean, certainly she's close enough to his parents geographically that it would be possible. The other thing that came to mind, you know, and I had to go back and check dates on this, but Koperger was shopping for knives as of April 2022 online on Amazon.

You know, the timing as well with this woman disappearing May 28th is also another piece that's curious to me and certainly suspect here. Let's hypothesize. And again, this is hypothetical. If Dana Smithers was killed by Brian Koberger, there's one way that his defense lawyer, Ann Taylor, could keep that evidence out of the Idaho trial, and that is by filing a speedy demand for trial. Under the Constitution, he's got to get a speedy trial if he sticks with the demand.

There's no way that they're going to get the evidence together in the Dana Smithers investigation in time to beat that speedy trial demand. And as of right now, we believe the defense is sticking with a speedy trial demand. It's unclear. One last question to Dr. Angela Arnold. The stress of starting a Ph.D. program, the stress of moving,

does high stress intensify a killer's desire to strike? You know, Nancy, I think we have to question whether he was stressed. I think this was a plan on his part to go out there and study. And I believe he was hiding behind the PhD program. And he was so arrogant and self-assured that he didn't feel like he had to be in class. He could, he could go, remember, he got very high reviews to go to this program. People thought very highly of him. He was hiding behind this PhD program and I don't believe he was stressed by the actual PhD program. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend.

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