Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - WSU KNEW KOHBERGER A THREAT, KILLER'S BLEAK APT., WITNESS' DEATH THREATS, VILE IMAGES

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Bryan Kohberger attended Washington State University for a little over three months, and in that time 13 complaints were filed about his bad behavior. The complaints related to a nature of being homophobic, ablest, xenophobic and misogynistic. Kohberger was just days into his first semester of the doctoral program when administrators received their first formal complaint, 12 more came over the next three months, according to newly unsealed documents. Included in the release,  photos of  the apartment Kohberger left behind in Pullman. The photos are filled with text books, graded papers and a refrigerator partially full of food.   The families of Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin are suing the city of Moscow over therelease of hundreds of these crime scene photos and video of the first response to 1122 King Road.Their attorney claims many of the photos constitute an “unwarranted invasion of privacy.”Leander James says ‘blurring’ on the images is an ‘ineffective’ redaction, and blood is stillvisible on floors and walls of the home outside of the blurring. James says in footage, thesounds of sobbing friends and roommates are also incredibly traumatizing for the families.  We are also learning that the witnesses and the individuals whom Kohberger's attorney planned to intimate as suspects are getting threats.  Joining Nancy Grace today: Philip Dubé - Former Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law, Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy, X: PhilipCDube, IG: PhilipDube, YouTube: PhilipDube3922 Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Author: "Deal Breaker,”  featured in hit show: "Paris in Love" on Peacock, www.drbethanymarshall.com , Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, Twitter: @DrBethanyLive  Chris McDonough - Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective, Host of YouTube channel, "The Interview Room" www.coldcasefoundation.org/chris-mcdonough  Joseph Scott Morgan- Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan", @JoScottForensic Susan Hendricks- Journalist, Author: “Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi", IG @susan_hendricks X @SusanHendicks   Sydney Sumner- Crime Stories Investigative Reporter  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Did Washington State University know Brian Koberger was a dangerous threat? Were there fiery red flags of alarm that they chose to ignore? would he have been kicked out and home to mommy and daddy and the Poconos and these murders would never have happened if Washington State University had acted? This as photos of the killer's bleak apartment are revealed, what clues did he leave behind? And believe it or not, witnesses are getting death threats as the victim's families in

anguish as vile images of their children in death are being released. Oh, H-E-D-L-L-N-O. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. And I don't know on location of your emergency. Hi. Something is happening. Something happens in our health. We don't know what. And she ran upstairs because she saw someone. That's what I'm pretty. sure she said she's someone's here and she's screaming just random stairs. Did you kill and murder Madison, Mogan, Kaylee, Gonzalez, Zana Kronotel, Ethan Chapin? Yes.

At this hour, family members still holding out hope that the feds will swoop in and seek the death penalty on Brian Koberger. Is it possible? And what about the fact that he was leaving a trail, a mile wide, red flags of alarm to Washington State University? that Brian Koeberger was a danger. We'll listen to what the Gonsolvis family has to say. I find it really interesting that Washington State had this long history of his anti-woman misogynist stalking behavior

and did nothing. That's really interesting. If he had been thrown out, he wouldn't have even been there. Exactly. Yep. He should have been thrown out before he ever killed these kids. It's, that's the truth. If they should have set a standard and said, look, we don't put up with this in our university.

You cross the line. You're done. It's not even our decision. It's just your behavior. We're holding you accountable. You should behave like this. That's the expectations in Washington State University. And you either do it or you don't.

I can always tell when he's having a bad day and he looked probably the worst I've ever seen him. And he just kind of stared at me and there was a newspaper sitting on the bar and he just kind of picked it up. I was like, it was him. He was really desperate for attention and ways to control people. That last sound from our friends over at Crime Fix, where coworkers, when they heard about the killings, they're like, it's Coburger. It's got to be Brian Coburger with me, an all-star panel of guests to make sense of what we know right now. But first, to Susan Hendricks, investigative journalist that shot to fame in her coverage of the Delphi murders, author of Downey, the hill my descendant to the double murder in Delphi and was there for the sentencing drinking

in every move Coburger made such as it was or was not. He seemed completely oblivious to all the pain around him, pain he had caused. But Susan Hendricks, let me get to the issue at hand. Washington State University. Did you hear Mr. Gonsolvis telling us that there had been 13 complaints where he would intimidate or stalk female students? Absolutely, and that he almost or wanted to make them cry. That is what he did. He treated them completely different than the male students. It was sign after sign after sign.

To me, what did it take? And was that the final straw for him when he was finally let go? But you're right, complaint after complaint, the Gonzalez family says, Hey, you just told me something I didn't know, Susan Hendricks. that part of the intimidation tactics on Brian Koeberger was to try and make the girls cry? Yes, he seemed to enjoy that. Like what? I didn't know that. Yes, would criticize the girls more, pin them out, pointed them out in class, and would make them cry.

It was a clear difference in that classroom. And they complained and finally was the final straw when he was let go. But absolutely, there were signs. And we keep hearing more and more every day. They did nothing. Dr. Bethany Marshall, joining us in addition to Susan Hendricks, Dr. Bethany, renounced psychoanalyst out of L.A., author of Deal Breakers. You can see her now on Peacock, and you can find her at Dr. Bethanymarshal.com.

Dr. Bethany, that sounds like a fifth grade, no, not even a fifth grade, a first grade boy, kissed the girls and make them cry. A grown man getting his Ph.D. One instance, Mr. Gonsalves told me about, no, it was Mrs. Gonsalves. office told me about Christy that he would stand in the doorway where the students were trying to get into the classroom all bowed up and the girls would have to like edge by him and their bodies, their front of their bodies, you know what that entails, would have to brush up against him. That's gross. And then Susan Hendricks telling us that he would intentionally

make the girls students cry. Nancy, this doesn't surprise me at all because the defining feature of psychopaths is that sexuality, cruelty, and sadism are all commingled. They all go together in some way. So making the girls cry was probably sexually exciting for him. Bethany, okay, you know, even if you wear hip boots when you walk through the says pool, you're still going to track a little home on the living room carpet. do you ever get so saturated you track a little bit home because do you hear what you're saying that koeburger would get sexually aroused oh i don't even think about that over seeing girls

tear up and get upset and how does that connect to what he did to the victims well yeah so what i'm saying is that seeing them cry is like looking in their eyes and seeing pain of some sort And when you think about what he might have been doing to make them cry, he was probably gathering personal information and pushing their buttons. And that I'm saying this is associated with sexual arousal. So these poor women, he probably had an erection while he was doing this. And how it relates to the murders, is that the murders were really overkill. They were sadistically motivated. And if we think of, think of him stalking the women, the university,

women as kind of like foreplay before he got to the major crime, which was stabbing these students multiple times. So it's like he was graduating towards increasingly sadistic acts in order to maintain his sexual excitement. That's what we have to see. So had he not been incarcerated? Yes. Bethany, wait till you hear this. Christy, Mrs. Gonsolvis and husband, Steve Gonsolvis, are telling me about how many complaints he had. Now remember, Dr. Bethany, he had just gotten to Pullman, Washington State University. And by Thanksgiving, they say that there were already that they know of 13 formal complaints by women against him. What is that? September, October, part of November, in two and a half months, what I'm saying is Washington State,

apparently did nothing. They finally had meetings and discussions and blah, blah, blah, and decided they were going to let him go, but they released him just out into the wilderness. Nancy. Listen to what they said, Dr. Bethany. I mean, he had 13 in the first semester. The first one came in August. That's the first month that you come to school.

And then 12 after. And November had a huge, you know, Thanksgiving break. And then he didn't even go the whole month of December. He took off, like, December 9th or 10th. And there's 13 formal complaints. Act aggressive and stand in doorways from what we've read. And the girls would have to, like, walk past him and, like, uh, yeah. You know, joining me is Justice Scott Morgan, not only death investigator with literally

thousands of death scenes under his belt. He is the star of hit new series, body bags with Joe, Scott Morgan, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, but for purposes of this discussion, Joe Scott is also Professor Forensics at Jacksonville State University. Don't you guys have rules? I mean, I know Jacksonville State University does, but how many complaints do there have to be? There's 13 formal complaints we've been told by the Consolveses. How many more were they, there were just like comments, you know, just comments like, what is wrong with him, going to complain to another faculty member or a guidance counselor.

What in the world? Can you imagine a grown man enjoying seeing his girls students start crying and they just let it happen according to reports? At Jack State, he would have been out on his ear. This is my 21st year as a college professor, Nancy. And I got to tell you, I'm thinking about this in a different way now that this conversation has come out. and I've got my professor hat on right now.

I think that his motivation for being in an academic environment is so that he can perpetrate upon these defenseless kids in this environment. He is lord and master in this environment. He can control the classroom. He can do whatever he wants to. He can do that dead-odd stare at people. and he is not in any way an educator. Look, when kids come into my class

and they're learning about forensics, I don't want to sound like a kumbaya moment because it's not. I want them to come in so that they can learn so that they can go forth and be effective practitioners in the field. That's not the environment that he has created. Nancy, if I were to compare him to something,

I would say this. If you know how a snapping turtle works, They sit on the bottom of the water, their mouth is open. And you know what? Their tongue comes out and it looks like a worm. So anything that comes by, that fish is going to attack that worm and then they clamp down. That's what he is. That's this behavior.

And he was utilizing the university in this environment to look for victims. And I think he probably would have continued as well. You're going to have to tell me the tongue and the worm part again. What? Yeah, a snapping turtle will sit on the bottom of a lake bed or on the bottom of a river bottom and they will sit there and they'll open their mouth and their tongue looks like a worm. It'll come out and just kind of sit in the water like this. So if a fish comes by, they'll see it, they'll strike at it. And when they do, the snapping turtle clasped down his

jaws on them and there's your meal. I've always felt like he was a reptile anyway. This further confirms it to me as a professor. I mean, there has to be rules that are followed. Yeah, there has to. I'm just thinking about what Dr. Bethany is saying about basically scaring the girls and making them cry and enjoying it. And according to the Gonzalez's, this was a pattern of behavior. If they had kicked him out, as I think they should have, he would have turned tail, you'd see nothing but tail hole and elbows, him running home to mommy and daddy. But no, he stayed and ended up murdering the four students and there's more listen to keeling gonsalves his father react

guy should have been punched in the face he was a creep and he's a disgusting creep the kind of guy we even heard about it from the seven sirens bar where those girls put a little note say hey if you get this credit card watch out for this guy I mean he's been doing this his whole life and we didn't stand up to him we need to start standing up to these type of bullies and uh death you know hopefully Idaho get it right hopefully those prisoners in in there. They'll do the real justice. They'll act like real men in there and they'll handle it the way that it should be handled in the first place. Are you surprised, Dr. Bethany Marshall? He wasn't just terrorizing the female students at school. A lot of them, 13 formal complaints that we know of. How many other complaints were there that were not formal? But now we know it was discussed at bars and restaurants where the female waitresses were like, watch out for this guy.

He is a creep, stay away from him. So he couldn't contain himself. He was compulsive, Nancy. He could not stop himself. Again, if we think of sex, aggression, making women cry, dominating women, threatening and intimidating them as all going hand in hand, we could say in a sense he was sexually compulsive, that he was constantly, constantly acting this out everywhere he went. And Nancy, if the criminal.

professors told the school administration that he was a danger, why wouldn't they trust criminology professors? I mean, these people are trained to spot sociopaths. And furthermore, did you know that Brian Coburger's school office was in the basement? It was isolated from other offices. And because of that, students were afraid of him and did not want to go in. So in a sense, they served up the students like a tasty little snack to him, which I think is just so, so disgusting, and it's really disturbing. And I don't know on location of your emergency? Hi, something is happening, something happens in our health. We don't know what.

What is the address of the emergency? One way to help you. What is the rest of the address? Oh, King's Road. Okay. And is that a house or an apartment? It's a house. Can you repeat the address to make sure that I have it, right? I'll talk to you guys. We're, um, we live at the lights, so we're next to them.

I need someone to repeat the address for verification. The address, 1122, King, Rug. So many stab. It's unbelievable. And I heard some in the bathroom when I heard her crying and I heard some guys say that you're going to be okay. I'm going to help you. And I could call your name, but she wasn't you three. They saw some man in their house outside. He brutalized each and every one of them.

Does it never end for the victim's families? Well, short answer, no. Their suffering will never end. But now they have another fight on their hands, trying to stop vile images of their children in death being released. Can you imagine? I remember writing my first book, Objection, and I learned about what I call blood money, people trying to get crime scene photos. I remember specifically people trying to get Nicole Brown, O.J. Simpson's wife's autopsy photos, yes, so they could sell them.

That fight going on, I couldn't believe that there are ghouls out there doing that. the family fighting tooth and nail tonight to try to stop those images. But right now I want to tell you about just obtained photos. And we are not, not here on crime stories. We are not posting photos, bloody photos of these children, these University Idaho students. That is not happening here. I will show you weird photos. of the killer, Brian Coburgers, Pullman apartment, very bleak apartment, to determine what, if anything, we can learn. Listen. New evidence photos show the bleak interior of Coburgers' Pullman apartment and WSU office.

Aside from graded papers, criminology textbooks, and a few birthday cards, Coburger's apartment is largely devoid of any personal items. Police marked a black glove, Coburger's computer tower, a few receipts, and a vacuum cleaner as evidence items, but found little of value in the sparse apartment. Coburger's nearly empty home echoes his thin social life. The admitted mass murderer had just 18 contacts saved in his cell phone and spoke to his parents for hours at a time every single day. Oh, my stars. Of course, Philip DuBay is going to join us in just a moment to tell me how this doesn't mean anything. but I guarantee you it would have meant something to a jury.

Did you see his bleak apartment, Dr. Bethany Marshall? That means something. Even his food in his freezer. I remember a family was over, a friend of my daughter's family was over and they're very, oh my goodness, okay, yeah, no, that's not happening in our house. And the family was over and they were very strict on their diets and their children's diets. And one of the children asked for, I don't know, a juice box or something. And I opened up, we're all standing in the kitchen, of course.

I opened up our fridge and they literally physically react and they went, because the fridge is just crammed with leftovers and leftovers and blah. It's just you have to dig in there. It's like an excavation to find something. Look at Coburgers. I can hear DuBae in the background going, mm, mm, mm. He wants to jump in so badly. What does it mean, Bethany?

I mean, look in this fridge, there's nothing. There's not even a piece of lint on the floor. Oh, is that an apple? He's got in a Ziploc bag on the right. You're not supposed to put apples in the fridge. That said, tofu, yes, and everything is hermetically sealed. And it looks like that fridge was just cleaned out with some type of antibacterial spray. Hit me, Bethany.

Well, this, you know, the, the apple. apples in the baggie are kind of an OCD type thing, right, being afraid of germs. I like what the commentator said about a thin emotional life. When you think of the traits of the sociopath as having very shallow emotions, their lives are not rich like ours. They don't put photos around of family members. They don't collect memories of the people around them. They're not comforted by home.

If you think of what we were talking about earlier about the fact that he has what we call a parapheria. So a parapheria is constant sexual arousal at something that is not sexual in nature, so anything other than sex, paired with attraction towards non-consenting adults. This is something that preoccupies Coburger. That's all he has room for. So it's not surprising to me when you look at his apartment that there's no sign of emotional richness, emotional life, relationships, anything other than crime, and the apples in the baggie, which are both just very compulsive. His whole life is organized around his compulsion, Nancy. I don't know what you just said. You lost me at being sexually aroused by an item not in nature. Like, I don't know what

that means. No, except being a parapheria is two things. It's being aroused by anything that is not sexual in nature, meaning it's, and also being aroused by a non-consenting adult. That means that he would not be aroused by a woman who loves him or wants to be with him. He would only be aroused by a woman who's non-consenting and doesn't want to be with him. In other words, he can't gain sexual excitement by anything other than being around people who really are not connected to him in any way. That's what we call a perversion. You cannot be excited by a full connection with another human being who loves you back. So it creates kind of a shallow perspective in life and that the apartment seems shallow. Like there's no life there.

Joining me now, special guest, Chris McDonough, Director Cole Case Foundation, former homicide detective with over 300. Oh, yes, speaking of OCD, check this out. Shoes lined up. He's staring up at the shelf to make sure, oh, he's cleaning the creases in his shoe. From what? All that mud? No, from nothing.

Chris McDonough, Director of Cold Case Foundation, homicide detective, over 300 homicides under his belt. I found him on the interview room on YouTube. That's his show. Chris, when you look at this department, what I'm saying is overarching theory here. There were red flags, fiery red flags being waved in front of everybody's face. Okay?

Nobody got it. Nobody did anything, including Washington State University. I'm calling you out. people. But are you surprised that there were no blood drops in his home? They got that vacuum cleaner, you know, to do what, to see if there was any trace of the victim's hair, any fibers, even dog fibers from Murphy the dog, dog hair from Murphy, anything they could find. Oh, no, that's not going to happen. What do you see? You're the trained homicide detective when you look at his freaky clean apartment it gives me the skee just looking at it you know nancy what uh jumps out

at me is the duality of his personality if you if we look at the room as a whole uh you can tell there's that oCD you know uh part of his personality but then you go into his closet look inside of his closet to the left side that is completely disheveled all of the receipts there you go all of that tells us a whole other side of his personality. This tells us what the girls were seeing. This is the hidden side of his life, the secret life, as we call it. These are the complaints that we're seeing here, not physically, but this is his personality. It's all about control in the public persona, and then behind the scenes, it's about violence. If you look at the book, there's one book there, the ivory tower on the floor that was found inside of his chest or other items there,

that is about sexual assault of college students. It's called unsafe in the ivory tower. If we look closely at that book, are right there to the far right in the bottom right corner. That book is about sexual assault about college students. Now, go do the math, right? I'm doing it right now. I'm making a note of everything you say. You know what's really interesting, Chris McDonough, and this is an aside. This is how you prepare for trial. You get with somebody.

I try to get with somebody that knows more than I do. So you can hear their ideas. See, I've looked at those books. I've looked at the titles. But you point out a book about sex assault in the, unsafe in the ivory tower, how female co-eds are sex assaulted. It's not just a coincidence. There is no coincidence in criminal law.

These are all tutorials for Brian Coburger, but nobody put together the puzzle pieces and now four students are dead. You know, Joe Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics and Forensic expert, Joe Scott, you've been to, a million scenes and I can't explain why but when I would go to a crime scene I would want to just sit down and have everybody get out of the room so I could just sit there and I don't

know what I was looking for but I needed it to be quiet so I could just look and see what I could see and learn what I could learn and feel what I could feel in a crime scene like Coburger's bleak apartment. And what about that computer screen, Joe Scott? Remember how he, quote, helped his colleague, helped his colleague put in her Wi-Fi security cams so he could have access and watch her walk around her apartment, naked or half-naked or just sitting there watching TV or making out with their boyfriend. I don't know what he was watching.

Can you imagine the hours he spent on that computer? just look at look at the chair look at the stark position you know i'm not a shrink but this is telling me something and look at the bed one pillow i guarantee you he makes the bed up and at night just gets it on his side and leaves the rest made up and sleeps on the one little area see how one side is a little messed up and the other side isn't he just like like sleeps in one spot by his computer. I mean, there's no way that anyone would have known all this, but we're learning all this in retrospect. Washington State knew a lot, but we're learning a lot. And none of it's good, Joe Scott. No, it's not. And listen, yeah, I can't imagine. I don't want to

imagine what he was viewing on that computer, particularly when you think about this observable, you know, kind of track that he was on where he goes into this woman's apartment and tells her that he's going to assist her with her security system. Lord only knows where that went. And sitting around, you know, to me, Nancy, this, this speaks to me as this guy is mission oriented. His mission is to wreak total and complete havoc. You're showing the text here. I'm wondering where his forensics text are as well, you know, because for so long, people had kind of pushed out this idea that he is this, and, you know, I took great exception of this, that because he's studying criminology, that he's a forensics expert, and those two things, you can't conflate those two

things. But I would assume that he had texts relative to that as well to help him kind of work through this idea that I'm going to be this master criminal. He's not trying to edify himself by studying these texts in any way. He's using this. He's using this as a means in order to understand what he needs to do in order to get to certain points along this journey of horror that he's on. For me, for me personally, one of the things that I would really like to try to understand is not only what happened in Pullman, Washington, I hope, I truly hope, with everything in my being, that they're going back to DeSales, Nancy. that they're taking a long look at everything that he got involved in in Pennsylvania

and see if there is anything else out there that is very disturbing where he was interacting with people. I want to know if there's any cold cases around that proximity because this is something he's been thinking about for a while. And to start off with four homicides, I just think that there's more two. From zero to 120 MPH overnight. Hey, Sidney Sumner, Joe Scott just said something that jogged my memory. He says to, Coburger says to his female coworker, let me help you.

I'm going to help you set up your Wi-Fi. So he could watch her naked or half-naked or cooking or whatever she's doing in her place. Same words. And echo, I'm going to help you. That's what he said to the murder victim before he butchered her. Another thing that you said earlier, Sydney Summer, Sydney Summer Crime Stories, investigative reporter joining us, that he had a thin social life as evidenced by his devices.

Explain. Well, we've learned that Brian Coburger only had... 18 contacts saved in his phone. I cannot imagine by the 27-year-old when this first started, only having 18 people saved in your phone. And most of those contacts didn't even have names associated with them. That's what I found even more odd about this, that, oh, girl I went jogging with, another girl I went jogging with, red hair.

So the 18 contacts that he does have. saved in his phone. Many of those are extremely impersonal, somebody he maybe met once or twice. So it just goes to show that he was very socially inept. And speaking on the phone for hours with his parents every single day, there's evidence that he would call them and talk to them until he fell asleep every single day. And that is just, again, extremely odd for a 27-year-old in a PhD program. Dr. Bethany Marshall, I need a shrink and I need one fast. Hit me. Well, the fact that he didn't have their real names in the phone suggests that he was already trying to depersonalize potential victims, right? I said earlier sexual attraction only to non-consenting adults. If they become

real, then he has to relate to them. He just wants to have power over people and aggression is such a core part of that personality. I bet he talked to his parents for hours because that was the only place he could even feel a semblance of an attachment, right? He probably didn't feel attached to anybody else. It's some kind of a comfort thing, Dr. Bethany, to keep the phone open and talk to your mom until you fall asleep. It's like a second bottle or holding onto your bankie. That's right. Yeah, having your little binky in your mouth. Exactly. And that computer in his room, I just can't stop looking at it and wondering what else is in there. Are there other pictures he took of non-consenting adults in public?

Like, was he going into bathrooms and putting the, you know, the mirror and the camera into the stall? Or, you know, I would be surprised if this perverse activity was just isolated to the one professor and to the students and to the people in the bars and restaurants. He had to have been doing it everywhere. That's a scary thought. I wonder if bathrooms at these restaurants and where he's, he worked, have been checked for, you know, like the tiny cameras. They need to check. I don't know if they've thought of that yet.

Okay, joining me now, veteran trial lawyer, Philip Dubay, joining us out of the LA jurisdiction. Okay, Dubay, I guess now you're going to tell me that none of this amounts to a hill of of beans, right? Not even close. I mean, are you going to say that because he's living in an austere apartment as a starving student, basically not having a pot or a window is a foreshadow of a quadruple homicide. I mean, I look back at my own college days.

And those days, we had a beanbag chair and a lawn chair in our living room, seriously. And to suggest that because he has a quote unquote bag of apples, that it's a sign of loveliness or a sign of sexual fatigue or some other type of psychopath. It's not at all what we said, DeBay, look, you can do you can do your. legal analysis, your defense-related legal analysis through your lens, but at least get it straight. We were talking about the sparsity of items in his fridge and the way that things were organized neatly and the austerity of his apartment and the lack of any connection to any body, another human. Did you see his mom and dad in a frame photo by his bed or a lot of pieces

is a paper and memories and ticket stubs and photos stuck to his wall with scotch tape. Uh-uh. No. No. He's like a robot. He's a machine, a killing machine. And it means something. Whether you want to admit it or not, it means something.

The guy's on the spectrum. Don't you remember he has Asperger's? You know what that is? It's a social awkwardness. He doesn't know how to relate to other people. He's alienated himself. Nobody wants to be around the guy. let alone give them their telephone number and address to be added as a contact to his phone.

That is one of the symptoms of Asperger's. They don't have a social network or people in their orbit. So if you were to look at it from afar, yeah, compared to other healthy, able, working, assiduous college students, he stands out. But to suggest that this is all a symptom or a foreshadow of a quadruple homicide, that is psycho-babel. The families of Madison Mogan and Ethan Chapin are suing Moscow over the release of hundreds of crime scene photos and video of the first response to 1122 King Road. Their attorney claims many of the photos constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Leander James says blurring on the images isn't effective and blood is still visible on floors and walls and footage. Sounds of sobbing friends and roommates are incredibly traumatizing for the families.

James argues the crime has been extremely sensationalized and harrowing images have now been plastered across the internet, news channels, and social media, often for economic gain. Straight out to Susan Hendricks, joining us investigative journalist on the case. Okay, so now the family that's still dealing with the murder, the brutal murder of their children are having to take on a fight so these vile photos are not released. Why would they be released? I mean, somebody files a FOIA request, Freedom of Information Act. So what?

Exactly. Stacey Chapin, Ethan Chapin's mom, and also Maddie Mogan's family filed this and said, it opens a wound. This is what Stacey said. That's not healed yet. In Delphi, Nancy, they were sealed. Sadly, there was a leak of the crime scene photos early on, but the autopsy sealed. Decision made by Judge Fran Gull, and I think it should be made here. But there was a hearing on this. and the judge said that he will make a decision down the road.

So I hope so. I mean, why do we have to see that exactly? I mean, I get it that when a case, you're seeing some of the photos that have been released where you're not showing bloody photos of the victim's blood in the crime scene, the home on King Road. The families have been through enough. Not only that. not only that now witnesses are being threatened death threatened listen judge

hitler weighing redaction attorneys say witnesses name should remain private as witnesses have been threatened and stocked hiring private security and relocating from their homes in particular attorneys believe coburgers alternate perpetrators should be kept from the public hippler asked for the information on each intended redaction including their roles in the case and whether they have already been identified in the media. Okay, Sydney Sumner, crime stories investigative reporter, also on the Coburger case. I take it that the, well, there have been a lot of threats on witnesses, but the witnesses that are getting the most serious threats are the ones the defense wanted to use

as some other dude did it, scapegoat, and they knew all along it wasn't true. That is correct. Those are the witnesses that attorneys on both sides are most concerned about getting any kind of threat or having safety concerns with their names being made public. And the defense at this point has admitted that those people were never involved in this crime. And this was simply a defense. They were trying to point the finger elsewhere to say it was not Brian Kovberger that committed this crime. So that has been disproven, but we know how many people support Brian Coburger. We saw the Reddit threads.

We saw the Facebook groups trying to prove Brian Coburger's innocence. So they want to protect those people that were named in this alternate perpetrator theory and make sure their names are not leaked to the public so no one can do anything to put those men in harm's way. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Bethany Marshall, the victim's families, call them the, quote, pro-burgers that are still going online. I see it every time I dare to look at social media, that he was framed. They're actually death-threatening witnesses, especially threats going to the some other dude did it. scapegoat the defense came up with knowing full well coburger committed the murders they were going

to blame somebody else in open court and it leaked out and now the scapegoats are getting threats what is wrong with these people do you know three to five percent of the general population has the same personality disorder that coburger has so it's not surprising to me that he has this huge following, Coburger probably did what his minions or followers, which they could have done themselves. They just don't have the courage to do it, Nancy. So he's their king. They are Pro Burger. And they probably are harassing anybody who they feel is going to bring the king down. That's just what's happening here. And you know, Joe Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, I can't stress enough the, the, the,

brutality of the crime scene photos. They're worse than any so-called slice and dice video you've ever seen, except they're real. And to re-victomize these victims that endured a horrible death that night and their families. I mean, I can't convey the nature of these photos, Joe Scott. It's very difficult to do that. reflect back just for a moment. Do you remember being in pretrial as a prosecutor and when we still had the old, you know, format images and they would be spread out all over the table. And you're trying to decide what you're going to use in order to describe what happened. All right. And some of

these images in our circumstances, you and I over those years ago, you think, do I really need to show this to the jury to get the point across? Because we would have. have to use our discernment in order to do that. Because some of these things are so over the top, Nancy, I can't express this enough to the viewing public. Why do you need to see them? Outside of court, this thing has been adjudicated at this point in time. There is no value in this.

No one is edified by this at all. And families are being destroyed. They're being traumatized. They're having to live through this over and over and over again. And people don't understand, you know, you could just be one of these parents and you could be in a store. And someone would have seen this on the internet and they'll say, I can't believe what happened to your child. I actually saw the image. Just let that sink in just for a second.

I can tell you one thing, Joe Scott, before I would introduce brutal photos like this, I would absolutely clear the courtroom and warn the victim's families. Brian Coburter wasn't always skinny as surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen said in her description of the mask. Coburger was quite plump before losing 130 pounds just in time for his 16th birthday. Goberger bragged about the weight loss in a job application, claiming his dedication to running and boxing, qualified him for the part-time security job at a school in his hometown's Pleasant Valley District. Again, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I don't know what it means, but it means something. Brian Coburger, obese, then goes on a crash diet. A crash, oh my goodness, yes, okay.

a crash diet it means something i don't know if it was to lure women what does it mean the body image how does that factor into this well antisocial personality disorder which is used interchangeably with sociopathy and psychopathy it causes impulsivity and dysregulation meaning the people cannot control, all of their emotions overwhelm them. So somebody who's dysregulated and impulsive is just going to eat anything that's not nailed down. Okay. So he probably had to go into this total starvation mode, vegan, vegetarian mode to get the weight off so he could predate on women. I mean, you're right. He had to look great to lure women. And what was his one of his first jobs? It was as a security guard, a position of power. He was already

graduating to the next thing, which would be working in an academic environment where he would have access to women and could study criminology. So it had a dual purpose, access to women, and at the same time, he was learning and preparing for the upcoming crime. You know, Chris McDonough, I'm thinking through all of these red flags, the bleak apartment, the lack of contacts, the objectification of women he would put as a contact, red hair. I'm trying to take it all in, but one of the most disturbing is that Washington State University knew. They knew there was a big problem.

When they heard about the murders, they went, it's Koeberger. They knew, but they let him stay. If they had fired him long before, maybe these murders would not. have happened. Yeah, that's a great point, Nancy. I mean, what did they know, right? They obviously had a PhD filed higher and deeper on complaints about Brian Coburger. And also, if we look back into his apartment for a minute, you know, and this is his office here, you know, it's just such a bleak personality. But look at the, look at the birthday card to the left. It's Teddy Roosevelt about on a Tyrannosaurus rex. And there's a comment on that that says, this is basically

your person, your egos and your personality. You know, carry a big stick, but make sure, you know, you eat them, i.e. right there, both of your egos. This is a whole, whole other lane for, for Doc to tell us about. But this really is Brian Coburger. And other people saw it. And W.S. you most definitely saw it. Okay, Dubay. What do you make of the Freedom of Information Act to release these brutal photos? The judge has taken it under advisement. I don't see there's any way that you can redact out all of that gore. No. And first of all, I don't even know who would want it. I mean, seriously, I mean, what type of carnography would the petitioner be into the

freaks? Yeah, gore court is what I call it. But make no mistake about it that just because somebody files a petition to make these photos public doesn't mean the court's just going to grant that petition. It's subject to a balancing test where a court has to balance the public interest in disclosure against the privacy interests of the next of kin. And if you have a situation where you can prevent trauma, preserve dignity, and prevent further distribution of this type of carnage, The court can deny it. There's no automatic right to this material.

And frankly, I could see somebody who's into this type of imagery further disseminating it on the black market somewhere, maybe to share in this type of Gore Corps or to even profit from it. Who in their right mind would even want this stuff? Yeah, blood money. Blood money, do you ask who is it? Probably nobody that you associate with. It's probably the same people that want Nicole Brown's autopsy,

photos, them, those people. And they do make money off of it. You know what? For once, Dubay, for once, I pray that you are right. And the two judges involved in this matter will hear your voice tonight, DeBay, as we all join the victim's families and ask the judges, please do not release these photos, these images, this audio. where you can hear crying and see what happened to the victims. Please don't do this to their families. Don't say the law compels. The law does not compel.

De Beis was right. You are responsible for the release of these photos, Judge. It's on you. As we wait for justice to unfold, we remember an American hero, Officer Darren Burks, Dallas PD, survived by his grieving mother, Sheree. American hero, Officer Darren Burks. Rest in peace, officer. Nancy Grace, signing off.

Goodbye, friend. This is an IHeart podcast.