Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - IDAHO STUDENT MURDERS: SUSPECT EXTRADITED, Eerie Details Emerge

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the murders of four University of Idaho students,  waived extradition from his home state of Pennsylvania. The 28-year-old will now be transported within the next ten days back to Idaho to face murder charges.   Kohberger answered “no” when asked by the judge if he had any mental health issues that would get in the way of his responding during the extradition hearing and then signed the waiver.      Kohberger’s mother, father, and sisters were present in court, supporting Kohberger. His mother and sisters openly cried. As Kohberger was taken from court, he mouthed "I love you" to his family.   Joining Nancy Grace today: Dale Carson - High Profile Attorney (Jacksonville), Former FBI Agent, Former Police Officer (Miami-Dade County), Author: "Arrest-Proof Yourself" Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist;Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: "Caryn Stark"   Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University; Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet" & Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan"  Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert, Founder: Cold Case Investigative Research Institute in Atlanta, GA; Twitter: @ColdCaseTips; Host of new podcast: "Zone 7" CeCe Moore - Chief Genetic Genealogist, Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. Parabon.com  Chris McDonough - Director at the Cold Case Foundation; Former Homicide Detective; Worked over 300 Homicides in his 25-year career; Host of YouTube channel, "The Interview Room" Dave Mack - CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell now. In the last hours, the prime and only suspect in the Idaho mass killing of four beautiful young Idaho University students has waived extradition. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. What happens now? Well, take a listen to this. It is a quirk. Apparently, it's not in the norm of the states I'm familiar with that Idaho does not release their probable cause affidavit in support of their arrest warrant until after their defendant is brought or returned to that

state. But having read those documents and the sealed affidavits of probable cause, I definitely believe that one of the main reasons the defendant chose to waive extradition and hurry his return back to Idaho was the need to know what was in those documents. So that's a significant development. You are hearing Mike Mancuso, the first assistant district attorney in Monroe County, that's in Pennsylvania, where Koberger has been held and we believe is being held right now. The judge in this case, the judge as far as it goes in Pennsylvania, ordered the defendant to be transported back to Idaho to be there within 10 days. Now, an extradition hearing is actually a very simple matter, but Koberger waived his right to an extradition hearing. And you're

hearing Mancuso opine that it's because he has an insatiable desire to know the intimate facts supporting his arrest. What more do we know about the extradition? Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. Brian Koberger, accused of slaughtering the four Idaho University students, appears in court in shackles. His mother and sister arrived for the brief hearing arm in arm, their faces masked. His father, also wearing a mask, was a few steps behind them. When Brian Koberger entered the courtroom here in Pennsylvania, his eyes went directly to his family members seated in the front row, dad, mom, and two sisters, all holding tissues. Koberger listened intently to the judge, even responding verbally with answers like, yes, I have, yes, I understand. Now, when he was led out of the courtroom, he did look back at intently to the judge even responding verbally with answers like yes i have yes i understand

now when he was led out of the courtroom he did look back at his family and mouth the words i love you we also know that the judge specifically asked him in court is he mentally competent to waive the extradition hearing and he answered yes i am but I've heard from a different source that his lawyer there in Pennsylvania also ordered a psychological exam now what does that mean does that make sense does that jive that he's saying yes I'm mentally competent to waive extradition while his lawyer is filing a psychological exam request no it is not is not consistent. But guess what? It doesn't have to be. This judge, Judge Margarita Worthington, I got to hand it to her, was very succinct, not to the point of being curt, but succinct and by the book. And that is what we need right now.

And I'll tell you why. This guy is on his way to a Ph.D. in criminology. He probably thinks he knows it all. He has studied criminal procedure. He knows a lot about the system. And I guarantee you, he is writing it down somewhere and giving it to his lawyers every time he thinks there has been some sort of constitutional error, such as he didn't get his Miranda rights or he wasn't given a lawyer immediately when he asked for one. It could be any number of things. That's just hypothetical. But I guarantee you the state and I mean the transporters that carry him to Idaho, the jail guards, the judge, the lawyers better cross their T's and dot their I's because this guy is watching everything with me.

An all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. First, I want to go straight out to the director and founder of the Cold Case Research Institute, forensic expert, and currently on the beat. That's right. She's current law enforcement. You can find her at coldcasecrimes.org. Cheryl McCollum. Okay, Cheryl McCollum, the whole time you and I were trying to figure out who is the killer, did you expect anybody like Brian Christian Koberger? No, I expected it to be somebody very close in the neighborhood, so to speak.

I thought he would be within 15 miles. I thought he would know the area. I still believe it was targeted. I think he knew these folks somehow. And I thought it was somebody barely bright, but I had no idea that it was going to be a PhD student who had been

studying different colors. Hey, Cheryl. Guys, let me also remind you, Cheryl McCollum just launched an incredible new podcast that I love, even though I haven't been formally invited to be on yet, Zone 7. This is an incredible inside look at what law enforcement does every single day. The things that all the things that go behind what we have right here. And I'm going to throw this out to Dale Carson. And remember, everybody, again, I don't know why I have to keep telling you guys.

We're not having high tea at Windsor Castle with King Charles. OK, jump in for Pete's sake if you have an idea. Because a lot of the ideas that we generated right here, I've seen police doing. I certainly don't take credit for what they're doing. But jump in. You never know. No prosecutor, no cop can't do with a little help. So Dale Carson joined me, high profileprofile lawyer out of Jacksonville,

and this is what I really like about him, former FBI agent and former cop in Miami-Dade, and I'd like to say there's certainly no lack of business there. So he's got plenty of war stories, which right now I'm not interested in Dale Carson. I'm interested in Brian Christian Koberger. You just heard Cheryl McComb say, well, I thought he was this. I thought he was that, but I didn't expect Brian Koberger. Everything she said describes Brian Koberger. I think it is his demeanor and his appearance is something we really didn't expect. He's a hulking six foot tall, but he's a wraith. And very, very thin, I guess due to his strict vegan diet. But he's very pale. He's almost emaciated looking. And he has a very intense stare,

which I would not like to see looking through my bedroom window. I can just tell you that much. But she also, Cheryl McCollum also described someone that was brilliant. I don't know how brilliant he was, but that's what his, that's what his teachers say. Can I tell you something, Dale Carson, which you probably already know? When you get a PhD, of course of course, you have a juror's doctorate. But when I went on to get LLM after my law degree, you get to steer your studies. All right. And Joe Scott Morgan and I have talked about this a little bit. I got my degree, my additional degree in constitutional and criminal law. And I studied all things criminal from the perspective of how do you prosecute and catch and build all sorts of criminal cases, RICO, video gambling, you name it.

This guy, Dale Carson, picked interviewing and questioning violent felons with questions like, what were you thinking at the time you killed her? What was going through your mind? What about it, Dale Carson? Well, I mean, this is sort of like Bundy in many ways. And they have that fixed stare that Bundy had, that Wayne Williams had. And they simply are thinking that they know more than everybody else, which is typical of a sociopath or a narcissist in the extreme. And that seems to be where he's coming from, which means that he doesn't have any compassion for anybody. And in that light, it makes it easier to kill somebody. And I am always of the belief that he's doing this because very few people who are at that level of education also have committed the crimes.

And if he were successful at this, he'd have a leg up over everybody else who discusses this. We had a police professor at University of Florida who came and worked for the sheriff's office in Jacksonville and then wrote a book about it because he had actual, not just academic, but actual experience about what law enforcement officers went through. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he's not headed the same direction. Except he's not finding out what cops are going through. He's finding out the emotions and the thinking and decision making of violent felons like murderers and rapists at the time they commit the crime. Jackie, did I just actually say Brian Christian Koberger? You did.

Because it's Brian Christopher Koberger. I guess thinking about this guy makes me want to say a prayer in the back of my head. It's Brian Christopher Koberger. Okay, speaking of his very bizarre research, take a listen to Hour Cut 216, our friends at Fox 13. Ghosh is part of the computer science department. He says Koberger talked to him about his studies in the criminology and criminal justice department. So I was like, how do you do your research? I think he said, like, he does experiments like ghosts and talks to people.

Ghosh believes Koberger lived alone. The Associated Press also reports that he graduated from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania with a spokesperson from the college saying that he received an Associate of Arts degree in Psychology in 2018. Koberger's apartment is only about a 15-minute drive from the rental home where the four students were stabbed to death. I'm going to go to Joe Scott, but quickly I want to circle back to Cheryl McCollum.

And Karen, start joining me. I hope you're percolating on everything you're hearing. Cheryl McCollum, I seem to recall that on one or two occasions, you were in and out of the pre-trial negotiation room when we would have an arraignment calendar of, you know, 100, 150 people, all felons. Absolutely. I had a particular judge, it was Judge Luther Alverson, one of the best judges I ever practiced in front of.

I, my investigator, and the defense attorney for each defendant would come into the room and the defendant, even the jail defendants, they'd be brought over and they would sit in an initial pretrial negotiation where I would say either there's not going to be a deal, this guy's going to trial, or I would give a plea negotiation. Can I tell you something? I never once, dealing with child rapists, murderers, burglars, killers, I never once thought to ask, at the moment you stabbed her in the torso, what were you feeling?

That is bass-ackwards. What is that? Well, it's probably out of my wheelhouse. I know it's out of your league, but in all those times, it's out of my league. All right? I'm not a shrink, but do you remember all those defendants?

Who would think? Sure. Hey, Jackie, when you raped that little kid, what were you thinking? Oh, hell no. I would say something like, you make me sick, get the hell out of this room. You're going down for life, trial or plea, don't care.

That would be something like what I did say. Go ahead. Well, from week one, I said this guy was going to have some Bundy-esque tendencies to him. Oh, there goes Cheryl McCollum's own seven-pounder self on the back. Go on, Cheryl.

I'm just trying to lay it out for people. Wow, a mass killing across from Fraternity Row. That was a tough stretch. Go ahead. Nope, that's not it. Ted Bundy not only studied the law, which you know, but he also volunteered at a rape crisis center. So for him, that was porn. He got off on that.

This guy did the same thing. He's studying criminology. So he's studying how do I get away with this? But it's more than that for him. He wants to know how other criminals felt during the crime. And that's what I'm telling you. You can wrap this whole thing up with a bow. It's obvious to me exactly why he would want to study what he did and why he would want to talk

to criminals and not victims. To Karen Stark, joining me, renowned New York psychologist joining us out of Manhattan. You can find her at karenstark.com. And I always tell you, because it's kind of hard to find unless she wants to do a name change. It's Karen with a C. C-A-R-Y-N. Karen Stark. What is this? Because you know how I always say this and you would laugh down your intellectual snoop when we were at Court TV together when I would say, hey, if the devil shows up at the front door, don't invite him in for dinner. He might just unpack his bag and stay overnight. Then you won't be able to get rid of him. In other words, when you flirt with something you know is wrong, I don't know, like pornography or heroin, something you know is going to destroy you or could destroy you.

Why flirt with it? Why entertain it? Why invite it to stick around? But that's exactly what he did. He did not only major in criminology, which thank God people do major in criminology, but he became intimately obsessed with it and facilitated his own sick interest in it. I read the whole thing, Nancy, and it was really chilling because his questions were that specific. And I really do agree with Cheryl that he knew exactly why he wanted to do it. This guy was getting very excited. He got off on reading all of this. There's no doubt about it. He wanted to know what it felt because he was putting himself in that place i also feel like in some ways he was rehearsing and getting ready to kill if he hadn't already killed and wanted to relive it so i mean this is just so incredible that somebody who

studied it to that degree it's even more than Bundy because he was living his life in those questions that was his life he wanted to know what went on with these people because he was one of them I completely apologize for saying you look down your intellectual snoot at me that was not a very nice way of describing. And then you just explained it so beautifully and actually with poignance. I mean, okay, let's go with the harsh reality. Joe Scott Morgan joining me. I really, gosh, you've got so many awesome guests. I haven't even gotten to see Seymour at Brilliant.

Now, that's what Brilliant really is. Chris McDonough, Dave Mack joining me. I'm going as fast as I can, guys. Joseph Scott Morgan is not only Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University. He's the author of Blood Beneath My Feet, and now he's the star of another hit series,

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. You can catch him on Dr. Field coming up soon. I guess on Idaho is what you're going to be talking about. Joe Scott. Okay. This guy, obviously. I hate to even say his name.

Koberger. Because that's going to be a name we're going to remember forever, Joe Scott. Just like we talk about Bundy and BTK and all the others, Jack the Ripper, it just goes on and on, Israel Keyes. It's like conjuring up a horrible, horrible vision. And no, for everybody online that goes, wow, you're convicting him before the trial. No, I'm not. I'm talking about the evidence that's already out there. We may be very surprised

and find out the DNA doesn't match. We don't know what's going to happen. This is what we know right now. A Fox Nation exclusive. An international pop star stripped of human rights. How does that happen? Easier than you think. Join us for a deep dive into Britney Spears' conservatorship.

Trapped, streaming now on Fox Nation. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joe Scott Morgan, I believe, Koberger, romanticized crime. He was obsessed with criminals and what they do. And I say this because I've had to force Gerards to look at the crime. And I remember one of the last, he was a serial killer, but we had him on one crime for sure, so I tried him for that.

And there was an autopsy photo that had to be shown to the jury so you could see the subdural, in other words, beneath the scalp bruising about how hard this victim was hitting the head. And I was standing in the court, It was a slideshow, Joe Scott. And I walked in the dark up to the screen and I was touching it, showing the jury various points to look at. And I thought, man, I'm going to have to stop doing this. Because it was just so upsetting.

When you see the reality of murder, as opposed to the romantization of murder, like you see on TV, or an, Oh, how I love Angela Lansbury, but murder, she wrote. Or something like that. Even CSI, even all the BritBox murder mysteries, you don't really see the reality of what murder is, much less for vibrant, beautiful, full of life, hopes, dreams, Idaho University students. But for a moment, Joe Scott, take me there to the darkness of what this murder scene really was at the hands, according to police, of Brian Christopher Koberger.

In those two areas, those two bedrooms, this environment would have been a bloodbath. Just understand that any time an edged weapon is used and it is introduced into an individual's body over and over and over again, that area that they're laying in, and I would assume that at this point, I don't know, but in these two beds, it would have just been super saturated in blood. And I, you know, when you brought up that visual of going in the courtroom and touching

those images on the display, defense attorneys many times will say, well, this is prejudicial. I counter that with this. This is the last time that these victims will have an opportunity to speak. And they speak through these images. And let me tell you something. When those images are flashed at a trial in the future, that will be them speaking. This is what was done to me. And whoever did this would have been saturated in blood as well. And there will be a super silent moment in the courtroom.

You've probably experienced that, Nancy. And that will happen. And that will be the dead speaking at that point, Tom. And another thing, I think practically everybody on this panel, except maybe Karen, has been on a murder scene, an actual murder scene. And it's nothing like what you see on TV or movies. It is. I mean, I've seen veteran police turn around and I could hear them throw up outside. That's not just in the movies.

That's real. I mean, have you ever smelled something that made you sick? Just the smell, just like, oh. The blood, as Joe Scott just says, is of consistency. When you make Jell-O, when you're first making it and you're boiling it, it's thinner, and then it turns gelatinous, depending on what time you get to the murder scene. It can be like dry gelatinous Jell-O, hair pulled out of the victim's head, caught in the blood. Just, you know, I really don't want to describe it.

If I had to try this case, I would describe it. But I think that's you, Joe Scott. No, it's me, Dale. Jump in, Dale. Not just a smell. Because after you're through cleaning up a scene like that, analyzing it, then you've got to get in a car and ride around as a partner to your other investigator and not be sick for an entire day. And no matter how many times I would, I'd leave a crime scene and I'd have to go back

to the courthouse and I'd go in a lady's bathroom. And I remember they had at the time that you hit the dispenser and a powder comes out not liquid soap and I would scrub and scrub and I'd try to roll up my sleeves on my my dress at that time women did not wear believe it or not pants to court um and I would just wash because I'd feel like I had some type of blood spatter or something on me. Chris McDonough is joining us. Of course, CeCe Moore. No offense to the other guests, but I'm saying the best for last today.

CeCe, hold on. CeCe is joining me, Chief Genetic Genealogist at Pirabon NanoLabs. And she's brilliant. Chris McDonough is joining me, Director of Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective. He's worked over 300 homicides, and I found him in the interview room on a YouTube channel. Chris, you have seen the home. You heard what Joe Scott said. I want to hear your thoughts about how this guy was so obsessed with violent crime.

I mean, I'm obsessed with fighting crime. I'm not obsessed with the thinking of a violent offender, what he was thinking when he raped a child or he murdered somebody with a knife. I don't want to go in that head. I don't want that stuck in my head. That's why the state doesn't have to prove motive. But I want to hear, you have viewed the home and the area. I want to hear your thoughts as we try to reconcile what we know to be true of the crime scene and his obvious rapture with crime.

Yeah, Nancy, I mean, now that we're learning a lot more about this individual, I think one of the thoughts that I have and that comes to me, and I think everybody on this panel would agree, is probably the deafening silence after the homicides. Knowing also, though, there were two other victims spared. But if we correlate, remember always every behavior has a purpose. And for this guy, that behavior started early with those questions in his educational studies. And I think the crime scene would reflect those questions because what he was trying to do, it appears, is narrow the scope of error to his advantage. And so what I come away with, knowing the neighborhood, is at this point, I think there is a lot of full court press technical pressure being applied in

the investigation. I think the investigation is compressing. What does that mean? The investigation is compressing? Yeah, Nancy. So I think what happens is, as we all have experienced, is in something this high profile, the investigators compress the investigation in, meaning they tighten it up a little bit quicker because now you have defense involved, you have defense investigators, and they're going to go back and circle back through your witnesses, your evidence, your scene. And so what they're going to do as an investigative team is keep moving forward on the technical data side quickly. The car, the phones, any type of analysis that's going to put him

in what we would call contact points with these victims through a victimology. Okay, can I follow up on what you just said? I really believe that they will, and I'm referring to police, law enforcement. It can be the FBI. I don't know which law enforcement

arm it's going to be. I really believe that they are going to place the defendant, Koberger, in and around the scene on multiple occasions showing that he, Koberger, had stalked the victims, had spied

on the victims, had maybe looked in their window. Specifically for you, Chris McDonough, which again, I just can't say how much I appreciated your drive-th How you go into the area of King Road where the victims live, you go up an incline and around and there is a parking lot. There's no way out except the way you came in. And that parking lot looks like it borders on trees, but it's not very dense at all. You can see from that parking lot straight into the victim's house. How many times do you think Coburger sat up there and got down in those trees and looked at them? That's a chilling thought, isn't it? Yes. That's a chilling thought.

Because when the girls looked out, Chris McDonough, they just saw trees. Because remember, they're in the light in the home. They're looking out at the dark and they think they see trees. They have no idea that somebody like Koberger could be right there watching them change clothes, watching the girlfriend and her

boyfriend make out, watching God only knows what he could have been watching. This should serve as a warning to all young women in colleges. Nancy, can I jump in? Please do. When you leave King Road, one of his escape routes will take you right to that farm road in West Pullman. What?

All right. Okay. Yes. Right? Okay. Yes. Where he got the ticket for no seatbelt. Right.

What struck me about that, it was after 11 o'clock at night where he got that. Because if you start your day, you know, you put your seatbelt on, you start the car and you go. But as you go in and out of your car running like quick errands, you might just jump back in and don't put your seatbelt back on. That's what I believe happened here. I believe there's a good chance he was a peeping Tom at that moment or up in his search area, you know, staring at them, stalking them. And then when he got back in the car, he just did not reengage his seatbelt. And that's why he was stopped right there at that first intersection. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our cut to to to our friends at ABC.

Recent students of his at Washington State University speaking out. One saying his appearance changed around the time the murders took place. He looked a little bit more disheveled. He had like some stubble coming on and his hair was a little messed up or whatever. I remember seeing him and thinking like, oh man, you know, finals must be really getting there. 28-year-old Koberger remained a teacher's assistant, working towards his criminology Ph.D. until the end of the semester. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Recent students of his at Washington State University speaking out.

One saying his appearance changed around the time the murders took place. He looked a little bit more disheveled. He had like some stubble coming on and his hair was a little messed up or whatever. I remember seeing him and thinking like, oh man oh man you know finals must be really getting there 28 year old coberger remained a teacher's assistant working towards his criminology phd until the end of the semester looking disheveled and quote messed up following the murders now other accounts are that he would speak in a very obtuse way in court, I mean, excuse me, in class. But then whenever the issue of the Idaho slayings came up, he would go, quote, deadpan quiet. We also know that he had been a very strict grader as a TA, teaching assistant. In fact, one of the professors had made a joke, hey, go easy on him, Brian, regarding his grading.

But after the murders, he was very lackadaisical and gave a lot of like A, A, A, B plus, B plus. He's not really reading the papers in depth anymore. Disheveled, deadpan. I mean, have you asked anybody about the Idaho murders and they don't have an opinion or a question? A lot of them are off the wall. A lot of them make a lot of sense. A lot of the ones that are off the wall actually raise really good questions.

Nancy, spin it. I learn a lot by looking at our social media. Questions, theories. Who is that, Dale? Yeah, spinning off on what Magic Cheryl said. You know, another reason to not have your seatbelt on is because it's more important to pull your pants up. Okay, yeah. Only you and Jackie had thought of that.

I'm not going to question why. But enter CC Moore. Oh, oh, oh. One more thing i want you to know uh tit cut uh 219 our friends at fox and friends listen to this it sounds to me that the defense lawyers are doing a good job remember they've already stopped uh the idaho police from tearing down the crime scene so that they could have their own experts come in and see if they agree or disagree with the determinations of the FBI and the police at the crime scene. That was our friend Michael Bodden speaking to our very dear friends over at Fox & Friends in the morning. And he's right.

The defense attorneys have asked to freeze the house so they can send their experts. And I think their experts have already gone in. And you know what? I would have defense attorneys jump up and go, we want to see the scene. All right. Okay, good. I want you to see the scene. Go for it. Because I really believe that we're right. And the scene of the crime is only going to confirm what the police think. But now, as we go to CeCe Moore, and remember, everybody, jump in with questions for CeCe, including you, Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter with us. Take a listen to our cut 221, our friend Kana Whitworth at ABC.

New details emerging about how law enforcement tracked Koberger down. Sources telling ABC News they use public genealogy databases like those used to catch the Golden State Killer. You have DNA from a crime but you don't have a suspect he's not in a database so you use public databases of genealogy looking for relatives. Eventually, you get down to the point where you can match the DNA potentially to your suspect. Okay, Cece Moore is with me again, Chief Genetic Genealogist, Pirabon NanoLabs. Cece, a lot of people have been throwing around 23andMe. I don't know if that is the DNA database they use, but I do know

that upon study, 23andMe is a private lab. They do not release that to cops. I don't think they can even subpoena that. But there is a catch to that. With 23andMe, and I researched it because I kept hearing everyone talking about that that was the database used, and I don't know that that's correct, but there is a way with 23andMe you can look at your ancestry, but also you can try to connect with people online. You can or you don't have to. So I'm guessing if it was 23andMe, and that's a big if, those relatives of co-burders had put their DNA

out there to see if there were any long lost relatives. I'm just trying to figure out how this happened. I think it's highly unlikely that 23andMe was used. And that's because they bar law enforcement and they have publicly stated that they will protect the integrity of their database, and they will fight any efforts by law enforcement to get into it. And they are worth a billion dollars, that company, they have deep pockets, they have a very robust legal team. And so it would have taken a fair amount of time for law enforcement to try to convince them to let them use their database. And we know this happened very quickly. So it's very likely that they stuck to the two databases that do allow law enforcement, GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA.

Yeah, hold on, hold on. Remember, CeCe Moore, we're just mere mortals. So sometimes you've got to slow it down for us. We're drinking from the fire hydrant here. So you're saying that there are public DNA databases like GEDmatch, which I believe you've told me in the past is GEDmatch. Correct. Okay. And there's another one you mentioned.

What's the other one? Family Tree DNA is actually a private database. They were the first company to offer genetic genealogy to the public to let you send in your DNA and get those results back. But they're the smallest of these companies. And they have family tree. Gotcha. Right. They don't have you know, they're not public.

They don't have investors like we see with those other big companies. So they can make a decision like they have here to support law enforcement and to allow. I'm glad you're telling me this, Cece, because nobody would use a private lab again if they thought the cops could just like get your DNA. All right. My son, my daughter is dying to get ancestry and did. And my son said, no, mom, I don't want to be. I don't want one of my relatives to be busted on a robbery or something.

I'm like, what put that in your head? And he said, you. I'm like, okay, well, guilty. But they did do it. And my husband got the horrible discovery that he's not from Scottish royalty. Okay. Uh-oh. He's having to deal with the fact that he's Irish just like me.

We're mutts. Okay, go ahead. Tell me what with the fact that he's Irish just like me. I'm mutt. We're mutts. Okay, go ahead. Tell me what happened here. How did it work? Well, first of all, I want to say people are talking about how smart Brian is. And I have to say, I just don't see how any student of forensic science or criminology did not realize that it's virtually impossible to commit that type of violent, intimate crime without leaving their

DNA behind. He can't be that smart. And he must have heard of investigative genetic genealogy, so he knew he wasn't in the law enforcement databases, but he certainly should have known we would track him from his relatives. Now, as I was saying, we're restricted to the two smallest databases, so we can only compare unknown DNA like his in this case, against about 2 million profiles. But we only need distant cousins. Everybody has lots of distant cousins. So they were likely working with second, third, fourth, fifth cousins and beyond, unless they got really lucky. And there was a close relative in one of those two small databases. What they would have had to do was build trees for probably days on end.

People have this idea that one match solves these cases. And that's not how it works. We're typically working with a dozen matches, two dozen matches. You're building trees day and night, and particularly in a case like this, where there was a real threat. Cece Moore, a while back, I was at CrimeCon, and Paul Holes was there, one of the many detectives that helped crack Golden State Killer. You know, he's phenomenal. But I remember him putting up, he drew it.

He drew it beforehand. Cheryl, I think you were there with us. He drew the family tree that led to the Golden State Killer. It went back like 10 or 12. It was a whole poster. There were like a few people at the top. Then it went out to like 18 or 20. Then 18 or 20.

It went down, down, down, down. I can't even describe how intricate that family tree was and how far back they had to go. When you're saying building a family tree, I mean, this goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War in some cases. I mean, you have to go way back to find, you know what, you can say it better than me. I know that. That's why I put experts on the stand. You explain it. Well, I can only imagine the pressure that the team felt that was building those trees. I'm sure they were doing it day and night, knowing that this perpetrator could strike again and there could be more victims. So when you're building, it's almost

like you're in this dark forest of trees and you're just looking for that little light at the end, trying to get out of that and see where you can make this all come together. We're looking for that one person who's related to all of those top matches. Some are going to connect to mom's side, some to dad's side, fortunately. And if they were able to connect to both sides of his family, it would have zeroed in only on him since he's the only son in that family. Now, we don't know what they had to work with. It's possible they didn't have a lot of great matches since his family is has a lot of immigrant ancestors in the last few generations but if they did it would have meant they were just looking at this one person now if they could only get say to great grandparents maybe they had to look at 12

great-grandsons 20 great-grandsons but then don't they take their knowledge and they try to find who with that DNA is in that area? And I'm getting an urgent note from our managing editor at Crime Online, Wilson, who is listening in. Oh, wait, no, this is from Jackie. Jackie says, some reports say Cox pulled his DNA from a discarded food packaging during observation. Now, I don't know why she's talking like that. But I think what she's trying to say in regular people talk is they staked him out for four days at least that we know of. And they waited for him to throw away a McDonald's cup or an Arby's wrapper or go through his trash very, very secretively. And get a toilet tissue or a Kleenex where he blew his nose to get the DNA.

That's not unheard of. See, so you can get DNA off a pizza crust and it has been done. You know, they do this exact thing in a lot of my cases. It's really typical that once we point them in the right direction, they're staking someone out. They're waiting for them to drop that piece of trash with DNA on it or pulling their trash from their curb. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's what happened here. Dave, Matt, you've been unusually quiet. Jump in, Dale, make it quick. Nancy, in Florida, every criminal has their DNA, felony criminal has their DNA taken. There's a national

federal database now, much like fingerprints. And that makes it a lot easier to go back. If one of those guys, you mean CODIS? Yeah. If one of those family members was arrested or they had their DNA taken because they're working in the medical field or something like that, it's very easy to make the connection or easier.

Right. Was that you Joe Scott jumping in? Nancy, this is Chris. chris go ahead chris so a couple thoughts that i have is and i'm curious about uh the two traffic stops is you know they're holding back the first body camera video yeah right now so the question is what's on that but remember the two water bottles in the center console yeah i wonder when we find out where that at what point do they get on this guy uh in the beginning and are these two traffic

stops you know the old surveillance team calling up wow you know what chris mcdonough that's a whisper stop yep exactly got it i had that question posed on Twitter. They said, do you think they got DNA from the defendant on one of those traffic stops? And I wrote back in for no. But that's a very good question, but it's my understanding that the cops didn't know to be, was that

December 15? They didn't know to be looking for Coburg or Cheryl McCollum? Jump in. I believe that's accurate, Nancy. But again, what I'm hearing is how fast this happened. Once they identified the car, they already had unknown male DNA at the house. Once they got his identity, they wanted his DNA to cross-check to see if it was the same DNA that came out of the crime scene. This happened, in my estimation, very, very quickly. And I think CeCe could probably talk about that, but I think there's very few places that could do it that fast. My guess was Othram, but it could be anybody, but it was fast as lightning to me.

Nancy, I think another indication that they may have had a team sitting on him is the fact that how many times was mentioned that they were looking for this specific car? I mean, it was just over and over. We couldn't get away from it. And here this car sat. It sat for days and days and days. Well, apparently mommy and daddy didn't notice because he was parked right up their tailpipe. I'm just wondering, I'm just wondering, if they had had calls on that particular car, and the police were like, no, we're not going to, we're going to back off of this and just watch what this guy is doing, because it's right there.

I mean, it's within the 10 spot, you know, to put it in the shooting terms. That's a really good point. Cece, if what our theory, working theory is right right now and we may be going down a rabbit hole but that's how you end up getting the correct answer you test a lot of different theories and either they work or they don't work let's just hypothesize cc that they did get that water bottle out of the car you know just pretend just a moment how quickly could they make a dna match to the known dna at the crime scene? Well, at that point, they would have already used investigative genetic genealogy to give them that

lead. They would have rushed that to their crime lab and been able to do that one-to-one comparison to the CODIS profile very quickly. In fact, I've worked with Idaho State Crime Lab, and they stayed overnight on the Angie Dodge case to quickly turn those results around. So I'm sure they would have done the same thing here and it could have happened very quickly. You know, you, CeCe Moore, Chris McDonough, Cheryl McCollum, Joe Scott Morgan, Karen Stark, Dale Carson, Dave Mack, each one of you have this wealth of experience. Like I didn't know you'd worked with Idaho before, but you have. Yeah.

This is so involved. But when the prosecutor puts it to the jury, it's got to be so streamlined. Not that they're simple idiots on the jury, but you have to be able to communicate a wealth of information to make it clear what happened. And we're going to see that unfold. Right now, it's being kept secret as to the transport of Brian Christopher Coburg for security reasons. But within 10 days, he will be in Idaho and we will see that probable cause affidavit. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.