Dateline NBC - The Idaho student murders: new details. Karen Read's voicemails. And Sean Combs's trial begins.

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Keith Morrison shares his latest reporting on the murders of four University of Idaho students including exclusive interviews and never-before-publicly-seen video. The retrial of Karen Read is in week three. The prosecution plays some of her final voicemails to John O'Keefe. And jury selection is underway in Sean Combs's blockbuster trial.Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.com

Good morning, Jim. How are you? I'm good. You're listening to Dateline's morning meeting. They believe the fire was set to destroy evidence. Producers have a lot to talk about. Arrests, courtroom drama, and breaking crime news around the country. There's a lot of dirt there. The extortion plot with the young couple.

I mean, it is absolutely war of the roses in this house. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. It's May 8th and we've officially hit our 50th episode. Here's what's on our docket. In Dedham, Massachusetts, it's week three in Karen Reed's retrial. We've got the latest on the prosecution's case, including a batch of angry, explicit voicemails from Karen played in court.

Karen made dozens of calls to John O'Keefe's cell phone and a lot of calls just went to voicemail and man they were fiery. Inside a federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan, hundreds of prospective jurors are being narrowed down to the 12 who will sit in judgment of a music legend. Jury selection is officially underway in the sex trafficking trial of Sean Diddy Combs. But before all that, we've got two very special guests, Keith Morrison and Dateline producer Shane Bishop. They're here to tell us about their groundbreaking investigation into a crime that stunned the nation, the murders of four University of Idaho students in 2022.

the nation, the murders of four University of Idaho students in 2022. Within days of the tragic discovery that the students had been fatally stabbed in their beds in the college town of Moscow, Idaho, Dateline producers were on the ground covering the story. For the next two years, Keith and his team followed the case at every turn, reporting on the manhunt, the arrest of the suspected killer, criminology student Brian Coburger, and the family's painful wait for answers. Coburger's trial is set to begin in 12 weeks and the judge has entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Now, Keith is back with Dateline's latest reporting on the case. From never before publicly seen security footage to exclusive interviews with people who crossed paths with Coburger. It's the kind of insight you won't find anywhere else. Keith and Shane, thank you so much for coming on to talk about this. Our pleasure, I'm sure. Just remind us who were the students who were killed in the house in those early hours of November 13th, 2022. So the four students that were murdered were Maddie Mogin, Kaylee Goncalves, Zana Curnodle, and Ethan Chapin. Two of them were about ready to spring into the world,

just about almost finished with their studies. Two were not quite so far along. All were lauded by their families and by their parents as responsible kids who were nevertheless going to college and having a good time as college students as well. Shane, there's always been a question about whether the killer was targeting one of the students in particular.

What did you find out about that? So we've confirmed with investigative sources that they believe the target that night was Maddie Mogan. One reason they believe that is because the killer seems to have gone immediately up to Maddie Mogin. One reason they believe that is because the killer seems to have gone immediately up to Maddie's room. So he was familiar in some way with where that girl's room was. As we all know by now, the killer found Kaylee with Maddie. The same sources tell us that there was a struggle upstairs in Maddie's room between Maddie, Kaylee, and the killer.

The noise of that confrontation, the thumping is the words that our source used, got the attention of Zana on the floor below. The belief is by these sources that she went up to investigate the thumping upstairs, the killer got interrupted, and then chased Zana downstairs. So just awful, awful final moments for these poor students. You found out that there was another girl who was supposed to be there that night, but lucky for her, she had a change of plans. And Keith, you had a very emotional interview with her mom.

Let's take a listen. How soon was it that you thought, my God, she was going to be there? I didn't think about that right away. All I could think about was the kids. But she just cried in her bed. She didn't want to talk about it. We just cried together for a long time. Makes you sad too, doesn't it?

It does. Sorry. Sorry. Wow. Well, I mean, imagine this, you've got kids yourself, Andrea, and you know how desperate a mother is to keep her children safe. Her daughter was intending to go that weekend to spend several days with her best friend, Maddie Mogin. And only at the very last minute, she had to stay at home to watch over the family dog. And if she hadn't, she would have gone to Moscow, Idaho. She would have been in that house

when the murders occurred and probably would have been sleeping in that same bedroom where the murders occurred. That is chilling. Something else that you learned from court records, which you will go more in depth in the episode, you discovered that Coburger's phone pinged off a cell tower close to the student's house before the murders? So it's been discussed in court documents that the FBI's CAS team, this cellular area survey team, has found 23 instances in which Coburger's cell phone used a tower that served an area within 100 meters of the murder scene between July 9th and November 7th.

We have some additional reporting on that that hasn't been out there, some specifics that we'll disclose on Friday. So there is some never before publicly seen security video which you'll show. Describe this video for us. You have to see it to get a full appreciation of it. Certainly, some pretty dramatic evidence of a white car in the vicinity of the crime scene right around the time it happened and afterwards. And you can't say for sure that it's Brian Coburger's car, but he owns a car similar,

at least looks similar to what's in that video, right? Well, we know Coburger owns a white Elantra. Your team tracked down people who crossed paths with Coburger, including some guests at a pool party he attended. What did you learn from these people? We know that Coburger attended a pool party on July 9th in Moscow, which was about 10 days after he arrived in Washington from Pennsylvania. One of the people we talked to was a woman named Holly,

who had also at some point been a graduate student far from Pennsylvania. One of the people we talked to was a woman named Holly who had also at some point been a graduate student far from home and so she felt some responsibility to you know talk to Coburger try to welcome them to the area. He seemed a little awkward kind of like you might expect for a PhD student who didn't know anyone at the party and was maybe trying his best to kind of get out there and be social and make friends. She told him about a hiking group that she was involved in. They exchanged numbers. The next day, Coburger texted her and said, hey, I'd like to get involved with this hiking group. And then for some reason, she just blew him off. She said, the universe intervened and I never returned that and still makes her shiver a little, obviously in hindsight. There's so much more reporting that your

team did. It is a must-see and it is called The Terrible Night on King Road and it airs this Friday on NBC at 9, 8 Central. Keith and Shane, thank you so much for just sharing all this information that you found. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you. Up next, Karen Reed's voicemails get played in court and the defense has some questions about how police collected evidence and it involves red solo cups. In Detta, Massachusetts, Karen Reed's second trial enters week three. Reed is accused of hitting her police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, with her SUV after

a night of drinking and leaving him to die in a nor'easter. Reed has pleaded not guilty. Her defense says she's being framed by law enforcement to cover up what they say is the truth about O'Keefe's death, that Karen dropped him off at an after party at the home of another Boston police officer. There, the defense says he was beaten up, dragged outside, and left to die in the cold.

This week, the prosecution turned its focus to the day O'Keefe's body was found and how the criminal investigation began. They also played some of the most explosive audio we've heard over the course of the trial so far, angry, explicit voicemails Karen left for John O'Keefe. Dateline producer Sue Simpson is here to fill us in on the latest.

Welcome back to the podcast, Sue. Happy to be here. Okay, and I have to ask, of course, did you win the lottery this week? Did you get a seat in the courtroom? I am in the courtroom. It is so exciting. Wow. Okay. Wow. This is big. All right. So court was back in session on Monday and we heard from some of the law enforcement and emergency personnel at the scene. The prosecution called a firefighter paramedic to the stand and prosecutor Hank Brennan had her describe what she saw that day.

That's right. So Brennan asked Katie McLaughlin about seeing Karen Reed at the scene. And McLaughlin testified that one of the firefighters there asked her to gather more information about what had happened. McLaughlin said she noticed Karen and she decided to approach her. Did she say anything to you in addition to the typical background information that you

would try to obtain from somebody? Yes. What did she say? I asked if there had been any significant trauma that happened that preceded this. And she answered with a series of statements that she repeated, I hit him. I hit him. And Sue, that's not the first prosecution witness who has testified that they heard Karen say, I hit him. You're absolutely right. And the defense, of course, maintains that what Karen said was, did I hit him? Or could I have hit him? That she wasn't making a statement.

She was asking a question. But you know, if you wanted to simplify this case, Andrea, and boil it down to a few critical points, this would be one. How will the jury interpret those few words, that handful of words? McLaughlin also testified that after Karen said, I hit him, Jen McCabe, who was standing right beside Karen, told her to calm down. Stop talking, calm down, you're hysterical. So she repeated, I hit him. And a police officer

asked her, said, you what? And she repeated it again, I hit him. And the officer then signaled for his sergeant to come down to the scene. The defense really pushed back on this in their cross-examination. Alan Jackson, you know, star defense attorney from Los Angeles, what did he have to say about it? Well, Jackson asked if McLaughlin was sure that Karen wasn't asking a question. And Jackson asked if she was actually admitting to a crime, why didn't they arrest her right then and there?

So they handcuffed her? No, no. No. Even though she just confessed in front of a police officer according to you? That's what she said. I hit him, I hit him. It's my fault. I did it.

That's a confession, correct? She said, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him, I hit him. And Officer Serif just stands there and my client walks away, correct? You'd have to talk to Officer Serif about that. The prosecution next called a witness who spoke to how evidence was collected at the scene. This was Lieutenant Paul Gallagher. He was one of the law enforcement officers who searched the crime scene after John O'Keefe

had been taken to the hospital. What did he have to say? So Gallagher testified that he was responsible for trying to preserve the scene in the midst of a snowstorm and that the weather conditions, those awful weather conditions made it difficult. And he actually testified that he didn't know it was a crime scene at the time. I decided to process the area where Mr. O'Keefe was found and try to find out why he had the medical episode he was having. If you understood this to be a medical episode,

and at that point you didn't have any information it was a crime scene, why were you taking the time and effort to process the scene under these conditions? Because that's what we do. I think we had a duty and obligation to check around where he was found and see if there was any explanation to what caused his medical condition. We've heard before about some of the unconventional methods used to collect evidence in the case. Gallagher was asked about those.

Can you remind us how they picked up this evidence and what they picked up? Yeah, unconventional is a good word for it. I mean, they actually used a leaf blower to reveal blood in the snow and red solo cups to collect that blood. And what was the purpose of using the red solo cups? They were plastic. They weren't going to leak. My thought was we could collect it, transport it, and transfer it to the crime lab who could extract the DNA, however they saw best fit.

Sue, the defense obviously seized on this, making a big point about how the evidence was collected. Jackson really did push him on that. The blood was stored in non-sterile solo cups, correct? Correct. We've agreed that those cups were not sealed. The cups themselves were not sealed. There was no cap, there was no plastic, plasticine, saran wrap, nothing put over the cups, correct?

That is correct. So they were open? Yes. They were not in an evidence bag, They were in a grocery bag, correct? They were, yes. Jackson pointed out that having unsealed and unsecured biological material, his words, was not within any normal protocol for securing evidence. They clearly want to show the jury that this evidence could be tainted.

And if it's tainted, then how can they trust it? And then that raises the possibility of reasonable doubt, which is exactly what they want to do. There was one more moment from the prosecution this week that was really striking. They played some voicemails that longtime listeners might remember from the last trial. Sue, remind us about those voicemails. Yeah, you know, they were, they're so powerful, these voicemails. Karen made dozens of calls to John O'Keefe's cell phone after she dropped him off.

And a lot of calls just, you know, went to voicemail and man, they were fiery. And just a note, those voicemails have some explicit language. The prosecutor wants to show the jurors just how angry she was at him. She was calling him a loser. You're a fucking loser. Fuck yourself. She was saying, John, I hate you.

You're my fucking friend. And Sue, you were there. Did the jurors visibly react at all? You know, the thing about these jurors are they really, for me at least, they don't show their emotions they don't show their feelings they listen their faces are impassive I didn't notice a reaction there startling I will tell you they land with a startle because Karen is sitting right in court and these angry angry words of hers and the swearing and and clearly this is a

woman who is passionate and has lost control of herself. They land in a court with a huge bang. Now the defense decided not to cross-examine the investigator who found these voicemails and these calls. They just let her words go and they moved on. Well, this case just keeps getting more interesting. And I'm, I know we will have you back very soon Sue. Thank you so much for joining us again. Thanks Andrea. Next up, the sex trafficking trial of pop legend Sean Combs is getting underway. We've got news from inside and outside the courtroom. the courtroom. For our final story this week, we're heading to a federal courthouse in New York City. The same courthouse where Martha Stewart was tried, Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty,

and Sam Bankman Fried was convicted. This week, another celebrity is at the defendant's table, Sean Combs. He is the multi-millionaire founder of Bad Boy Records and a multi-platinum artist himself. For more than 30 years, he was a record label executive who could make or break careers, until September of 2024, when he was arrested in a hotel lobby.

And charged with racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution that could lead up to life behind bars. Prosecutors say they can prove that over a span of 20 years, the 55-year-old physically, emotionally, and sexually abused his alleged victims and used violence and blackmail to silence them. Combs has denied the allegations

and pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. This isn't the first time Combs has appeared in a New York courtroom. This Sunday, Dateline will be airing a special episode where Josh Mankiewicz explores the controversies that have dogged Combs over the years and the events that led up to his arrest last fall. But we wanted to know what's going on right now as news crews from all over the world gear up for the start of testimony next week. NBC News correspondent Chloe Maloss is here to fill us in from her post on the sidewalk in front of 500 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. Chloe, you have been on this case from day one. Thanks for having me. So the top charge against Sean

Combs is a charge that was used in the past against mob bosses. In New York, that's how Rudy Giuliani made his name. It's what is called RICO or racketeering. What exactly is the state's top attorney alleging Combs did? You know, I've been talking to a lot of different criminal defense attorneys, and they all told me ahead of this trial to go watch Goodfellas if you really want to understand what Rico is. New York prosecutors claim that Sean Combs who had bad boy records and he had all of these different businesses that he was actually using this organization to partake in illegal

activity and that he conspired with others who worked for him to carry out that illegal activity. Something that got just a lot of attention were these freak-offs. Yeah, alleged drug-fueled sex parties that he supposedly filmed, he had people who worked for him go and procure sex workers for these parties,

and potentially flew them across state lines to meet him and had employees of his allegedly fill his home with what's now gone viral, you know, tons of baby oil. The prosecutor has listed four victims in this case. What do we know as far as who they are? Because we don't have their names yet, right? We don't, other than victim one. We know is Cassie Ventura.

We know it's Cassie because the indictment so closely mirrors what she had in her civil suit that she filed against Combs in 2023. She says that he forced her to participate in freak offs, that he subjected her to years of physical and emotional abuse, and it's incredibly graphic. We know that Combs settled that lawsuit with Cassie for an undisclosed amount of money, and there was no admission of wrongdoing on his part.

But according to your reporting, it sounds like she is going to be one of the prosecution's first witnesses. We know from a source familiar with the case that she is going to be testifying within the first few days of this trial. She is the government's star witness. I mean, this is going to be explosive next week when she takes the stand. And this is a sad story when you think about Cassie Ventura, because this is a woman who had big dreams, you know, to be a singer and,

and Sean Combs was that guy who was going to help her live out her dream. So she was 19 and he was 37 years old when they first met and she had signed a 10 album record deal with him and they started to date, but she very quickly became known as Mrs. Combs. Essentially, they weren't married, but she was like the first lady of hip hop. They were on every single red carpet together. From the outside, they looked like they were in a perfect relationship, but she really pulled back the curtain with this civil suit.

And I can imagine that we're going to hear a lot more when she takes a stand, and I'm sure very emotional. Also, I just want to point out, she's actually very pregnant. I think she's about eight months pregnant. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the people in the courtroom. These prosecutors, they're all women. And then you have Combs with almost like two tables

of attorneys because he's hired so many at this point. So you may have heard of celebrity attorney Mark Garagos. He famously represented Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, the Menendez brothers right now. He has actually been in the courtroom and his daughter, Tenny Garagos, is one of the lead attorneys on this case. You also have Mark Agnifilo, who's also currently representing Luigi Mangione. And you also have a man by the name of Brian Steele. Brian Steele, he represented

young Thug in his state RICO case and was successful. What are the defense's arguments so far? Combs' defense is saying everything was consensual, that all the charges against him deal with women who were in consensual relationships with him. And something that they said at one point was, this was a lifestyle, call it swingers or whatever you want, this was Combs' life. The judge also ruled this week to allow the testimony of a defense medical expert that can talk about drugs Sean Combs may have been taking.

Right. So what we've heard about these freak offs is that there were a lot of drugs. And so you're going to potentially hear from people who say that they can't even remember some of the things that happened because they were on some sort of mind altering substance. And also, if Diddy took any of these substances, does that make him responsible for the acts committed? Jury selection is always important in trials, but it's especially important when you're dealing with such a high profile defendant. What kinds of questions are the prospective jurors being asked?

Some of the questions are really simple. What are your views on domestic abuse? What do you know about Sean Diddy Combs? What have you heard about the trial? They were given a list called People and Places. It has dozens of names, and some of them are celebrities. And so some of the jurors we've heard them say, I know who Kanye West is.

I know who Michael B. Jordan is. I know who Mike Myers is. And some of those names obviously have been really shocking for the public to hear. They haven't been accused of any wrongdoing. Nobody knows the context why these people are being brought up. Are we seeing any reaction from Sean Combs? Yeah, so on day one of jury selection,

early in the morning, he actually asked the judge for a bathroom break because he said, I'm a little nervous right now, but he is in the fight of his life and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars if convicted on all counts. Yeah, Chloe, you will be there from opening statements until the end. I will. Eight weeks, maybe more. I think it's going to be the biggest trial of 2025. We do too, Chloe. That's why the Dateline True Crime Weekly team is trying something new.

Starting this Monday, May 12th, I'm going to be checking in with Chloe at the end of court every day and she is going to bring us the latest developments. We'll drop those conversations as bonus episodes called On Trial in the Dateline True Crime Weekly feed, so watch out for that. And remember to check out Josh Mankiewicz's Dateline episode, Sean Combs On Trial, this Sunday at 10, 9 Central. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. Thanks for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Frannie Kelly and Katie Ferguson.

Our associate producers are Carson Cummins and Caroline Casey. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kuruloff. Production and fact checking help by Kim Flores Gaynor. Veronica Mazaka is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer, original music by Jesse McGinty, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production, Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Kula's senior executive producer of Dateline. Thanks so much everybody. Bye bye.