Dateline NBC - The Terrible Night On King Road

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Exclusive new details and never-before-reported evidence about the investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students. Keith Morrison reports.

Tonight, a Dateline exclusive. All I could think about was the kids. Those four families, I can't imagine. Sorry. It's just weeks away, the trial and the terrifying murders of four college students in Idaho. Ryan! Ryan, you can do it! Now, startling new information, video never seen before. There's evidence to show that his car left in such a hurry, he almost hit somebody.

Yep, that's right. Ominous selfies from the suspect's phone, images of women and serial killers. Googling the words forced, passed out, drug. These are all themes of power, domination and control. It was very known that Brian Coburger had a problem with women. I was like, he had my phone number. He had asked to hang out with me. New details from inside the house.

Something is happening. Something's happening to my health. What will be revealed in court? We came across a tip that would appear to be an alternate suspect. Justice is coming. Families deserve that. It's time.

The evidence, the trial, the suspect, the heartbreak. Tonight, you're inside this case like never before. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with The Terrible Night on King Road. And now spring has come to Moscow Edo and fresh life with it. Soon another army of graduates will be released into the world. And not far from King Road, the infamous student boarding house where four students were murdered in November of 2022, the school has built a memorial.

With the trial of accused killer Brian Coburger now just 12 weeks away, it's the crime no one can forget. What happened to these young people is a scene from a horror movie and yet it was real. Yes, about which we now know more. In the two years since our last report, we have learned things, heard and seen things that have never before been reported. We've gathered this information carefully and methodically from sources with direct knowledge of the evidence,

sources we trust. What new information? Well, this for example. Never before publicly seen security videos that show a white car circling the block that terrible night, pulling up to the house just before the murders occurred and speeding away after. And these never before seen photos from Brian Koberger's phone.

We've learned from our sources about a previously unreported brutality. I think it's a clue there was a special anger toward that male. And those same sources close to the investigation have told us which one of the four victims they believe was the intended target. 21-year-old Maddie Mogin. What in the world would make anybody want to target Maddie of all people, the way you describe her? She's so beautiful.

Maybe an ideal for someone who couldn't have that ideal. Angela Nevejas considered Maddie a member of her family. Her daughter Ashlyn was Maddie's best friend. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Young women grew up together in Coeur d'Alene about an hour and a half north of Moscow. Both attended the University of Idaho and were roommates in that big six bedroom house just a block from campus at 1122 King Road. They had coffee together, they did yoga together, they walked to class together. So when the girls would get bored in Moscow, they would come together, they walked to class together. So when the girls would get

bored in Moscow, they would come and stay with us. And my husband is like, oh no, the sorority girls are coming this weekend, better watch out. Those sorority girls included 21-year-old Kavi Goncalves and 20-year-old Zana Cronodal. Hi, my name is Zana Cronodal, also among the roommates on King Road. They were so fun and just beautiful and kind, super kind, you know, raise the sunshine. But they were also motivated, so they made sure that academically their stuff was done during the week and they had fun on the weekends and they all you know would have graduated top in their class. They were very responsible kids. Responsible yes but so much more.

Maddie was kind of like a little sister to you right? Mm-hmm. Katie Widmeyer was Maddie's boss at a clothing store in Coeur d'Alene. She knew all the roommates, invited them and their fellow sorority members to model and work at fashion-related events. They really didn't come from extremely privileged backgrounds. They knew how to be someone was to get an education.

Katie quickly recognized Maddie's potential, offered her more hours. An offer Maddie turned down. And I called her up and I was like, Maddie girl, why are you not taking more hours? And she said that she makes two more dollars an hour at her serving job. And I was like, you know what?

We would have paid you $25 an hour to stay here. As the school year came to an end in the spring of 2022, Maddie with one more year to go was making plans for life and work after college, as was Kaylee who had just a semester before graduation. Zanna and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, had a little more time to figure out things. She was a junior, he a freshman. And what none of them knew was that across the country, another student was making plans to continue his education. Brian Kohlberger had grown up in the Pocono Mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. An awkward kid who'd struggled with his weight, with girls. He'd written that he once looked in the mirror and saw a sickly, tired,

useless, and stupid man. But by 2022, he was 27, and Koberger had both kicked a heroin addiction and lost more than 100 pounds. He loses this weight and he turns himself into literally another person. This is Howard Bloom, award-winning investigative journalist and NBC News consultant. Bloom was on the ground in Idaho days after the murders and has written a book about the case, When the Night Comes Falling. He has studied Kohlberger intently. His body becomes a temple, he's eating vegan, he's working out, so he's created this other individual. And this new Brian had also found his calling, criminology.

He'd received his undergrad and master's degrees at DeSales University, near his home in Pennsylvania. His master's teachers, one of them said he was one of the two best students she ever had in 10 years. And by the summer of 2022, he'd been accepted into the PhD program at Washington State University in Pullman, just a 15 minute drive across the state line

from that house on King Road in Moscow. But no one knew yet was it Brian Koberger while finishing his master's degree had gone on amazon.com as these documents in the possession of law enforcement and obtained by Dateline show, and he'd purchased a K-Bar U.S. Marine Corps knife, a knife precisely like this one, nearly eight months before the murders. Then on June 25, 2022, he used his phone to take this picture of his car at 2015 White Hyundai Elantra,

just as he pulled away from his family home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, headed toward Washington State and the fates that awaited them all. There is an element that's very cinematic about this whole story. Cinematic, yet very raw and real. And reported here for the first time, the phone calls Koberger made in the hours after the murders. I would have loved to have heard that conversation. The text message to a woman who met Koberger at a party before the murders. I probably would have never thought of this experience again.

And newly revealed photos of young women. I probably would have never thought of this experience again. And newly revealed photos of young women, photos Coburger browsed on his phone. He's clearly trolling and getting stimulated by looking at people who in his mind fuel the fantasy. And with the trial just weeks away, how will his attorneys defend Brian Coburger with the death penalty hanging over his head? How do you mount a defense to all that stuff? Piece by piece. And if one card falls, then the house can fall. June 30th, 2022. Four and a half months before the murders on King Road, Brian Koberger pulled into the parking lot at Graduate Student Housing in Pullman, Washington.

The same day, this photo turned up on his phone, a photo of what perhaps he thought would be his home for the next few years, as he worked on his PhD in criminology. We should add that the photos from Koberger's phone throughout this story have been resized for improved quality, but are otherwise unchanged. After unpacking he met a new neighbor who invited him to a pool party in nearby Moscow Idaho, a place

called the Grove. It was a sunny Saturday July the 9th. We had some friends that wanted to have a party or get together a barbecue. This man was invited too. His name is Zach. He asked us not to use his last name for reasons of privacy. Some friends had invited me there to play music. Zach isn't a musician, but with a doctorate in food science, he is known locally as Catalyst, the Ph.D.J. Zach arrived around one, set up his speakers and equipment. And then I think most people came around maybe 2 or 3 o'clock.

This brief bit of video shows a snippet of the actual pool party. There's drinks and everyone's having a good time. One of the partiers was Baseth Salamjohn. There's volleyball happening. I was like, oh, that's probably something I want to do and just hang out in the pool and have drinks. — Vasseth was sitting in the pool shallow end when a friend introduced him to the man's new neighbor, a guy named Brian. — He was kind of a real pale fella.

I think we've all had conversations like I've had with him. Like, oh, yeah, so we have nothing in common, and that's okay. — So Brian Koberger moved on to talk to Zach. He kind of came up to me and asked me about DJing and really locked in, but after a while, I had to eventually ask him to let me focus on playing music

because he was really invading my space at that point. Before long, another partygoer arrived and encountered Brian Koberger. This is Holly. She also asked us not to use her last name. I was kind of mingling and socializing and started chatting with this guy and he had told me that he had just moved

and he was starting his PhD. Holly had that in common with Brian Koberger. She'd also moved away from home to work on a graduate degree, hers in plant science. I definitely felt a little obligated to chat with him because to me he seemed a little awkward, kind of like you might expect for a Ph.D. 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. Holly told Brian about a hiking group she was part of,

and then she did something that still makes her shiver a little. He had put his number into my phone and then I had texted him my name. Holly wasn't alone apparently. Beseth watched Brian Koberger approach a young woman he, Beseth, had his eye on. And I was like, ah, damn, I might have dropped the ball there because I think that they might have exchanged information or phone numbers or something.

I then thought, OK, well, he must not be that awkward because, I mean, he's over here talking to girls, so he might be doing OK. But that wasn't all that happened to the pool party. A source close to the investigation has told us something a party goer observed that at one point, Brian Coburger became fixated on two young women dressed in bikinis. Fixated was the word our source used, but one of the women was married and gave her

nearby husband a nonverbal signal, rescue me. So the husband approached Coburger and the women jumped into the pool. But we're told that Kohlberger didn't take the hint, brushed off the husband, moved over to the edge of the pool near the women. It was all very off-putting, the party-goer would later say. It was the very next day, the day after the pool party, when Holly's cell phone buzzed. A message from Brian Koberger. The wording of the text as I look back on it is kind of peculiar.

Here it is. The actual text sent July 10th, 2022 at 1.19 p.m. Quote, Hey, I'm pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday. I really enjoy that activity, so please let me know. Thanks." It was almost overly formal. I really enjoy that activity, so, you know, can you follow up with me about that? So did Holly, in fact, let Brian Koberger know about plans to hike, as he had asked? No, she did not. There's not really a good explanation. You know, the universe intervened,

and for whatever reason, just distracted me from further engaging in that interaction. Holly never saw him again. Unlike that other partygoer, when you've already met, Catalyst, the PHDJ. He kind of approached us like we were good friends. And honestly, at that time, I had no recollection. I didn't really know who he was.

It was not long after the pool party at that place they called the Grove in Moscow, Idaho. The man known as Catalyst the PH DJ ran into him again. Ran into Brian Kohlberger, that is. I was on a hike on Kamiak Butte. Zach and some friends were descending Camiac Butte, a 3,600 foot summit that shoots up out of the grain fields of the Palouse about 15 miles outside Pullman. It's a popular hiking destination. Night was closing in as they picked their way

down the slope. And then there he was, Brian Koberger, except he was walking up the hill, alone, into the dark. And we thought that was really odd because it was late. Zach didn't recognize the guy from the pool party, but Kohlberger? He recognized all of us very well.

You know, he kind of approached us like we were good friends. And then off he went, up Kamiak Bute, into the dark, alone. Night, it appeared, appealed to Goldberger. Frequently he went for drives in the dark, hikes and runs in the dark. What is this business about, loving to be in the dark? Brian is someone who lived in the shadows. Again, journalist and author Howard Bloom.

It's no crime to be a night owl, but it all adds to this level of mystery, of detachment from society, that was his persona. Or perhaps something more than just detachment. Kohlberger's lawyers have said he has obsessive compulsive disorder, a condition which can disrupt sleep cycles. Retired FBI profiler Greg Cooper has testified for decades as an expert in the field of behavioral analysis. He has studied Kohlberger extensively. He functions under the cloak of darkness.

That's where he's comfortable. Nobody can see him. He doesn't have to worry about being identified. But if Brian Koberger thought he couldn't be identified, then he would have been wrong. In cell phone tower data collected by the FBI and obtained exclusively by Dateline, an agent asserts there is evidence showing the areas

Koberger visited after dark in those summer months before the murders. Most significant, trips to a very specific area of Moscow starting in July, the evening of that pool party, and continuing a dozen times until mid-August. And in doing so, connected to a cell tower providing coverage to within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road had he connected while parking near the tower or Driving past we don't know How or when Brian Coburger came to be aware of the house on King Road or its occupants?

We cannot tell you there was no prior interaction between Brian Kohlberger and any of the victims. They don't have any record of any conversations with them that they found of him going through social media. What Kohlberger was thinking as he came near the King Road house or just why he was there, we can't know that either. But profiler Cooper believes all of this is evidence of a plan coming together. He's on the

hunt to begin with and wants to understand the level of his own risk that he's going to be taking just to experience and prepare for what he has planned to do. Again, what Brian Koberger was planning to do, if anything we do not know, his lawyers have maintained his innocence from the start. But we do know this. On August 16th, six weeks after Coburger arrived in the area, records from his phone obtained by Dateline and in possession of law enforcement show

that Coburger Googled the name of the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, although with a misspelling of the name, and the name of one of Coburger's professors at Washington State, and then downloaded a paper written by that same professor called Ted Bundy on the Malignant Being, an analysis of the justificatory discourse of a serial killer. In other words, how serial killers justify themselves. Was it part of Coburger's research for school?

Or as profiler Cooper speculates, something else? He can't achieve that level of power, domination, and control within his own life. And so he looks to those that emulate those characteristics of success that he's determined to follow, and has decided, I can do this. That search regarding Ted Bundy was far from the only Bundy related item on Koberger's phone, but more about that later. That same day, August 16th, Maddie Mogen posted this photo on Instagram,

showing her and all of her four roommates on King Road, Dylan Mortenson, Zana Cronodal, Bethany Funk, Kaylee, and Maddie. How are you? Good, how are you? And then later, at 5.30pm... You know why we're here? I assume noise.

Noise, yeah. That is Kaylee Goncalves talking to officers on police body cam. The house on King Road had been the regular setting for large parties and noise complaints. Hey ladies, how's it going? Like this party, where none of the actual residents was even present. Although officers eventually did reach Maddie Mogan on the phone. So was it possible that someone who wanted to could have slipped into the house during that or some other party unnoticed. We ran that idea by Ashland's mother, Angela.

Do you think it's possible that Kohlberger attended parties there? No. They're not going to let somebody of his age in that house, period. And if there was somebody that they didn't know, they kicked him out. Because my husband and I watched it firsthand. Five days after that party, at this intersection, that they didn't know, they kicked him out. Because my husband and I watched it firsthand.

Five days after that party, at this intersection, less than two miles from the house on King Road, a deputy stopped and ticketed Coburger for failing to wear a seat belt. It was 11.40 p.m. Then, five days after that, on August 26th, Coburger googled, when can a cop detain you? What he's doing is testing what the protocol is for the police officer and comparing that

to what his experience was. But information about detainment and due process were not the only Google searches on that phone. He is googling phrases related to pornography. His searches include the words forced, passed out, drugged, sleeping. Does that mean anything to you? Interesting, isn't it? These are all themes of power, domination and control.

But now, late in August, school was starting at WSU in Pullman. He was part of a PhD cohort and ready to begin work on becoming Dr. Brian Kohlberger. Brian Kohlberger was more than just a student that autumn of 2022 here at Washington State University. He'd been given added responsibility as a teaching assistant or TA, meaning that in addition to his PhD studies, he'd be leading classes and grading papers. It didn't go well. He was very demanding. He felt he was the smartest person in the room, and he wanted his students to approach somewhere

his level of expertise, and they resented this. In our reporting, we've heard complaints about Koberger, accusations of sexism, for one thing. Maddie Mogens' friend Katie heard about it, too, from students she employed at her clothing store. So there's a girl that she said that, I have never, ever gotten to see before in my life, Eddie Mogan's friend Katie heard about it too from students she employed at her clothing store. So there's a girl that she said that I have never ever gotten to see before in my life. That in that class it was very known that Brian Coburger had a problem with women.

Another student told us that Coburger seemed to enjoy belittling a professor who sometimes struggled with English usage. She is the same professor who had written the paper about Ted Bundy. He would talk about this, it seemed almost obsessively. Koberger's only known friend at WSU turned out to be someone with whom he shared an office and the graduate student apartment complex.

A woman from Korea, Nyang-Ko. It's very difficult for anyone to understand why any two people are attracted. But from the reporting I've done, they both were outsiders. Two young people far from home, who could blame them. Two sources familiar with the relationship characterized it in a similar way. She told people she, quote, felt something about Koberger. And at one point, she approached him as if she wanted a romantic relationship, and he pulled away, that she felt she wasn't good enough for him.

That's about the same time Koberger was browsing these photos of women on his phone. Dateline has obtained dozens of these photos. Many of them got to Koberger's phone from Instagram. We've blurred the photos of the women for obvious reasons. But there are blondes and brunettes and many in bathing suits, some from WSU, others from the University of Idaho, including close friends and Instagram followers of Maddy Morgan, Kaylee Goncalves, and Zana Karnodle, three of the roommates on King Road. The idea is you're studying them.

Dr. Gary Bruckato is a clinical and forensic psychologist, a researcher and author. He's the co-creator of the Columbia University Mass Murder Database and a visiting scholar at Boston College. Dr. Bruckato has not examined Brian Koberger, but he has followed the case closely. And we asked him about these photos found in Koberger's browsing history.

If you're casting a fantasy, the only thing these people have to have in common is that they have the characteristics of who it is that you think rejected you. So they'd have to be popular, attractive, and female. It's a type of trolling behavior, and getting stimulated by looking at people who in his mind have these characteristics and fuel the fantasy.

Whatever that fantasy was for Brian Coburger, or if he had any at all, we don't know. But history shows that potential serial killers progress, engage in escalating forbidden behaviors, peeping into windows, to entering homes uninvited, collecting personal things. And that's why this story about Coburger's classmate Nye Young Co. stands out. It happened two months before the murders, September 10, 2022, in her apartment. She felt there was a break-in, and she discovers this step by step. First, she had baked a cake.

She had left it on the oven because it got burnt. She was going to throw it out. She comes into the house, and she finds it's in the microwave. Then she goes into the bathroom. Her cosmetics were all on a shelf, and now they've been lined up in a neat row on the top of the toilet seat Then co discovered two items were missing prized possessions a watch and a personal letter

And here she was alone and really she's scared. It was also two o'clock in the morning. Who could she call at that hour? Well the night owl Brian Brian Koberger, of course. She's afraid to stay there. She goes to his apartment. They spend the night together. There's nothing romantic, but she stays there and she feels comfortable. It's only later that she begins to put the pieces together,

and she begins to think, well, maybe Brian knew about the letter I had received. He knew about the watch. Could he have taken them? And then a source told Bloom something else occurred to Nyung Ko. The day before this theft, she hadn't been able to find the key to her apartment, a key usually kept in a drawer at her office, the office she shared with Brian Coburger. She tells Brian, he says, I don't know, I haven't seen anything, and then suddenly a

couple of hours later the key materializes in her office drawer. Co was worried. She bought a security system for her apartment, one she could check on her phone. And when the installation proved to be a little too complicated for her, again, she called Kohlberger. And he installs the thing and he gets it working. And it's only later she begins to wonder, was this on Brian's phone too? Could he look on his phone

and see what was happening in my apartment? She realizes that this person she had called in her moment of need and desperation might now be not only spying on her, but also perhaps the perpetrator who had taken the valuables originally. Later, Nye Young-Co told law enforcement about her suspicions.

We asked to speak with her. She declined comment. What that incident at her apartment was all about, we may never know. Or whether Koberger was behind it all, or got some satisfaction from it. But we do know that his life at WSU was not going well. A month into the semester,

he'd had an altercation with a professor. And he would just rear up in fights. He would lose his temper. The move west didn't seem to be going well, unless, of course, to him, it was. MUSIC Six weeks before the murders on King Road, Brian Koberger's life seemed stressful. The new acquaintances who were avoiding him who found him strange. The undergrads in his classes who were complaining about him. The colleagues who found him difficult.

At the end of September 2022, the Dean asked to see him to discuss norms of professional behavior. Retired FBI profiler, Greg Cooper, has observed similar patterns of distress, often in cases that end in murder. These are what we refer to as precipitating stressors and triggering events. On September 30th, as phone records reveal,

Koberger googled sociopathic traits in college student. If an individual is starting to notice that they're having a hard time having feelings towards other people, he might try to look it up and understand it to make sense out of it. Forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Bricotto. Now, you do have somebody who is studying criminology, so it's entirely possible that he's reading about it

because he's learning about offenders, but it's impossible to say. Impossible to say, what was in Koberger's mind. But those FBI records may hold clues. They show Koberger's phone popping up three more times in the first two weeks of October, hitting the cell tower within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road in Moscow.

Again, all after dark. Telling a story, said Dr. Bruckado. And based on his training and long experience, he speculates this way. One imagines a predatory animal in increasingly small loops around the victim, moving closer and closer, building up one's nerve. Have you seen examples of this sort of behavior? Other examples?

It's very typical of men who are motivated by sexual fantasy. It looks pretty motive-less and strange, like a random targeting of a house, but it has to do with the person that is living inside has caught your eye as filling the role perfectly of your fantasy. We don't know how any of the women in that house caught Kovruger's eye, or if he stopped during any of those drives of his near the house. But if he did? You'd expect that he went to the backyard, for example,

and possibly looked through the window. Murphy, you've been a bad boy! Certainly it would not have been difficult to see the women or even study them or the house based on their almost constant posting on social media. The other possibility, of course, is that you're using things like TikTok videos, because for people like this, everything is intel.

You know, there's a door there. There's a lock. Look, there's a dog. The window's open. Look at what time of day it is, and there are people there, et cetera. And it's all about fact gathering. You guys, it's eight.

Gotta go. And cell records Dateline has obtained show that at the same time in early October, a month before the murders, Kohlberger was still browsing images of women from WSU and the University of Idaho on his phone. Google searches were made for pornography containing the keywords drugged and sleeping. Then October 14th,. Hello, I am Officer Loengas. Brian Koberger was pulled over for the second time in seven weeks, this time for running a red light on the WSU campus, the stuff captured on police body cam.

You're not supposed to block an intersection like that in Washington. Koberger was courteous, explained he was from out of state. Yeah, we're from Pennsylvania, we actually don't have like crosswalks. that in Washington. Koberger was courteous, explained he was from out of state. Yeah, where I'm from Pennsylvania, we actually don't have like crosswalks. I'm just curious about the law. Oh no, yeah, I can find it for you. Yeah.

I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law. I wasn't trying to like... No, no, no, not at all. Like I understand you're not from here. She was very professional. She didn't challenge him. She didn't make him feel subordinate to her.

Five days after that traffic stop, Kohlberger googled these words. Can psychopaths behave pro-socially? He's researching. He's understanding, becoming more familiar with psychopathic characteristics. Was this search related to schoolwork? Or his own sense of self? We don't know. psychopathic characteristics. Was this search related to schoolwork? Or his own sense of self?

We don't know. But then he googled his own name four times in a span of 13 days. As November began, he took this photo of a snowy parking lot outside his apartment. And then, on November 2nd, 11 days before the murders, he had a meeting at WSU to discuss what was called an improvement plan. He got into a confrontation with one of the female students.

He approached her while she was at her car, and she did not like the vibes he was sending off. That incident was reported to faculty. And then, on November 7th, in cell phone tower data collected by the FBI, and obtained exclusively by Dateline, an agent found that Koberger's phone again connected with that cell tower, showing he was within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road. And that made it a total of 23 trips to that very same area in the four months before the murders,

all after dark. Then, according to prosecutors, Koberger stopped using his debit card on Thursday, November 10th. And the next day, the 11th, began employing what the state's experts call anti-forensic methods to clear evidence from his school computer. The weekend ahead would be one no one would ever forget. Saturday, November 12, 2022. On the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, it was game day. The Vandals would be playing football.

A photograph was in order. At the house just off campus at 1122 King Road were Maddie Mogin and her lifelong friend Kaylee Gonzalez. Kaylee was close to graduation and had already moved most of her belongings out of the house, but had returned that weekend to show off her new Range Rover. The others? Santa Curnoadel and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin. Chapin didn't live in the house, but often stayed over.

And two new roommates, Dylan Mortenson and Bethany Funk. And there might have been at least one more face in that photo if Maddie's best friend Ashlyn Couch had her way. Ashlyn had graduated a few months earlier, moved out of the house, and to save money, moved back to her parents' place in Coeur d'Alene. But that weekend her parents were out of town, and they had asked a favor of Ashlyn. So we were supposed to come in Friday night and our flight actually got

in on Saturday night because I rerouted our trip. And so you asked her to stay? And she had to stay an extra day to watch the dogs. How did she feel about that? I mean she was bummed because it was a big game day. Has ever a favor asked by parents turned out to be such a godsend? Kickoff for senior day was 4.02 p.m. Touchdown, Idaho! The game ended at 7.12. And less than an hour later, across the state line in Pullman, Washington,

Brian Kohlberger was on his phone. At 8.08 p.m., records obtained by Dateline show, he was watching YouTube. Then around 9 p.m., Kaylee Goncalves posted that group photo on Instagram, and in what would be the last social media post of her young life, Kaylee wrote, One lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day. That Saturday night, Ethan and Zana were attending a party at the nearby Sigma Chi fraternity.

Kaylee and Maddie went to hang out at the Corner Club in downtown Moscow, arriving sometime after 10 PM. Three and a half hours later, at 1.37 a.m., the two women left the bar together, walked a couple of blocks to a place called the Grub Truck, and got some food, as you can see in this video. At precisely 1.49 a.m., one of the women called for a young fraternity member who'd been assigned

to help drive home upper classmen and women to make sure they arrived safely. A ride of little more than a mile. They got to the house on King Road at 1.56 a.m. Roommates Bethany and Dylan also got home around two. Zanna and her boyfriend, Ethan, would return shortly. And starting at 2.26 a.m., Kaylee and Maddie made a total of 10 phone calls to Kaylee's former boyfriend. A half hour later, at 2.54 a.m., a cell phone in neighboring Pullman was turned off.

It was the cell phone belonging to Brian Koberger. 32 minutes later at 3.26, a car that authorities identified as a white Elantra and called Suspect Vehicle 1 was detected in the southeast corner of Moscow. At 3.30 a.m., security video from a neighboring house obtained exclusively by Dateline shows Suspect Vehicle 1 turning toward 1122 King Road just off camera. Three minutes later at 3 33 a.m. the car was back again passing the house. Then again five minutes later at 338 and at 3 40 a.m. and then back on King Road at 356 a.m. And then back on King Road at 3.56 a.m. And 3.58 a.m. All this leads me to feel it was an internal battle.

He had made up his mind at some point earlier to commit these crimes. By 4 a.m., most people inside the house were in their rooms. Some were asleep. But not Zana, who about that time received a food order from DoorDash. Then at 4.06am, something definitive seemed to be happening. The car travelled west, performed a U-turn at the intersection of King Road and Queen Road and headed back toward the house. At 4.07am, the car drove in one last time approaching the

house at 1122 King Road. So now it's time to go ahead and do this. It was just before 4.07 a.m. and pitch dark. The white car caught in these images obtained exclusively by Dateline, a car that had been captured on video for some 38 minutes on the streets around 1122 King Road in Moscow, had gone off camera and apparently parked nearby. Inside the car, police believe, the driver and a knife with a seven inch blade, the Marine Corps fighting K-Bar. What was going through the mind of the person carrying that knife? Dr. Bucato can only speculate based on his years of study. My sense is that it was a culmination of a life

where over and over again you're being rejected and you're being knocked off a pedestal. You say, that's it, it's time to enact the fantasy. To illustrate what might have happened inside the house on King Road in the minutes that followed, we had this animation built. It's based on the recollections of former residents and court records, police affidavits,

real estate and social media images of the house. And we've also spoken to sources close to the investigation who gave us their theories of what happened. Sometime after 4 0 7 a.m. the killer entered the house on the second floor through an unlocked sliding kitchen door and went quickly and directly upstairs to Maddy Mogin's bedroom. Sources close to the investigation have told us that is one of the reasons they believe Maddy was the killer's target. But almost certainly to the killer's surprise, he discovered that Maddy was not alone. Kaylee was sleeping in the same bed.

Something happened that hadn't been planned on. The killer attacked anyway. There was a struggle. It was noisy. Multiple sources close to the investigation speculate that Zana downstairs in the second floor kitchen on TikTok heard thumping and went to investigate.

The killer must have heard this, our sources said, and turned his attention away from Maddie and Kaylee and began chasing Xana. And in that kind of chaos, this thing gets dropped. The thing being the sheath for the K-Bar knife, the one found on Maddie's bed. Those same sources have told us that with the killer in pursuit, Xana desperately tried to

reach her bedroom where Ethan was sleeping or was possibly passed out. But as she reached the bedroom, the killer was on her. What one source described as a hell of a fight ensued. At 417 a.m., 10 minutes after the suspect car turned in toward 1122 King Road, the security camera on that neighboring house picked up sounds, including what police described in charging papers as distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper, followed by a loud thud. Here are those sounds. A dog began to bark, as if something was wrong. Then multiple sources close to the investigation told us, was Zana either dead or dying? The killer saw Ethan in bed, possibly passed out after a night of drinking, and with one swift blow of the knife, blood spatter shows the killer struck an artery.

When you're dealing with crimes that are motivated by anger toward women, the men that are in the way are rapidly dispatched. Then, according to our sources, the killer did something strange. He carved Ethan's lower legs. Carved is the specific word that was used. If you view that person as having gotten in the way of what it is you're trying to play out, you might be overwhelmed with anger toward them and do something extra. And I think it's a clue that there was a sexualized component to this because this was about women. There was a special anger toward that male. It looked like the killer sat down after that,

said an investigative source, and left behind impressions in blood on a bedroom chair. He's exhausted. He's gone through four people. People that commit mass murder don't anticipate the adrenal exhaustion that's going to overwhelm them when they do it. But as he left the bedroom and tending to exit through the same kitchen door where he entered,

the killer was surprised again by another roommate. Dylan Mortenson had heard various unexplained noises that night, and at that moment opened her bedroom door. After hearing a noise she said she thought was crying coming from Zana's room, according to a police affidavit. She's bothered by the noise. She opens the door and sees this individual coming down the hallway. Later in charging papers, police said Dylan told them she heard a male voice say something

like, it's okay, I'm going to help you. And saw a male in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. She said he was 5'10", or taller, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. She said the male walked past her as she stood in a frozen shock phase. If she had said one word, if she had screamed for help,

if she didn't find the moments too overwhelming, I think she would have been killed too. But she was not. Dylan said the man walked away while she locked herself in the bedroom. She knows something's wrong. She's under the influence of alcohol. She's between being awake and asleep. He would have probably assumed that she was about to call 911.

He better get the hell out of there. Definitely. His primary objective now is to get out of there and not to get caught. And here, at 420 AM, is suspect vehicle one as it bursts back into the range of that security camera. At a high rate of speed, the car raced toward the intersection, turned right,

and disappeared from view. This car left in such a hurry, he almost hit somebody. Yep, that's right. He's panicking. If he was, he wasn't the only one. As suspect vehicle one careened out of the King Road neighborhood at 420 a.m., Dylan Mortenson was still locked in her bedroom, making calls to roommates. Calls that would never be answered. But for whatever reason, she did not call 911. Downstairs on the first floor of the house,

Bethany Funk was also making calls to Zana and Kaylee. 422, Dylan texted Bethany. No one is answering. I'm really confused right now. Dylan texted she saw someone wearing a ski mask almost, also something over his head and mouth. I'm not kidding. I am so freaked out.

Then Bethany to Dylan. Come to my room. Run. Down here. Dylan left her room and began running toward Bethany's room downstairs. On her way she noticed Xana lying on the floor of her bedroom, with her head toward the wall and her feet toward the door. Dylan thought Zanna was drunk, she would say later.

After Dylan reached Bethany's room, the two roommates continued trying to text and call the victims upstairs. No answer. At 4.48 a.m. 28 minutes after the white car left King Road, FBI records show, a cell phone turned on south of Moscow and hit a cell tower that covered an area west of Blaine, Idaho. A phone that records show was tied to Brian Kohlberger.

The signal moved west and 32 minutes later at 5.20 a.m., the phone hit a tower near Johnson, Washington, until finally at 5.39 a.m., the phone connected to a tower covering the west side of Pullman, Washington. And it was in Pullman, records obtained by Dateline show, that a call was made from that phone linked to Brian Coburger Using a tower not far from his apartment. The time was 6 17 a.m Nearly two hours after the killer sped away from the murder scene. The call lasted 36 minutes

To a phone in Pennsylvania registered to Brian Coburger's father It appears that several family phones including including his mother's, are on the same account. In fact, records show that call was the first of three calls Coburger made to the phone registered to his father that morning. The longest call lasted 54 minutes. We reached out to the family for comment, but we didn't hear back. Meanwhile back on King Road, by 7.33 hours after the murders, Bethany was awake and calling her dad. By 8.05 a.m., Dylan was at least briefly back on Instagram, and at times throughout the morning she continued to reach out to her roommates by text and on social media apps.

Still, no answer. Just after 9am, record show Brian Koberger's phone was briefly back in Moscow and not far from the crime scene for about 9 minutes before returning to his apartment, where at 10.31am he took this selfie in his bathroom mirror. The prosecutors released it seven weeks ago. Reaction was immediate and worldwide, much like this. There's a shower behind him. He's now into new clothes and now he's celebrating.

He talked about looking into the mirror and seeing himself as a nothing. And then after these crimes he's giving a thumbs up, which implies now he's somebody. And notice it's a mirror. It's a reflection. I'm somebody in the eyes of other people. And an hour after that, selfie was snapped. Records show that Brian Koberger's cell phone

hit a tower serving the towns of Clarkston and Lewiston, 34 miles south of Bulman. Police theorize he could have been disposing of evidence, a knife perhaps, or possibly clothes worn during the killings. And then there's a river down there near Lewiston, so... That's right, a very likely place that he could have discarded it. It would be very difficult to retrieve that. Back in Moscow, midday was approaching, more than seven hours after the murders. Neither Bethany nor Dylan had called 911. The only explanation that I can find for that

is cognitive dissonance. It's just too overwhelming. They can't process it in any rational way, so they behave in a way that's irrational. Dylan's story? As court records show at about 1150 AM, frightened, she called a friend and asked her to come over. The friend brought her boyfriend, and he and Dylan and Bethany started to walk up the stairs.

When they reached the second floor, she said, she saw Zana again for a split second, started bawling and thought Zana, quote, was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor. But the boyfriend had apparently seen more. He told Bethany and Dylan to get out. He was pale white, told them to call 911, she said, and mentioned something about someone being unconscious. Bethany dialed 911 at 11 56 a.m. 911 location of the emergency.

Hi, something is happening. Something happened to my health please don't know what. What is the address of the emergency? 1122. emergency. The 911 call is absolutely harrowing. It's clear that they were totally shocked. You can see how they're overwhelmed by this event. An unidentified female speaker stepped in to help. The address 1122 King Road. One of the roommates has passed out and she's drunk last night and she's not waking up. Okay.

Oh, and they saw some man in their house last night. Moscow police were there within minutes and found in the silent bedrooms, carnage. On the second floor, Zana, lying in what one source close to the investigation called a massive pool of blood, Ethan dead in their bed. Upstairs on the third floor, where Maddie and Kaylee, still together in a bloody bed, all four had been stabbed to death. Then the awful news raced around the college and around the town, and to Maddie's best

friend, Ashlyn. Ashlyn, who would have been there that night with Maddie and the others, but had to stay home instead to watch the family dogs. Ashlyn's mom, Angela. What was that like? It was a pain inside that you can't really explain how your body's feeling.

And then knowing that the pain and fear and everything that I saw in my daughter was it was just like my house stopped. It just stopped for months. 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. Blindsided too that day was Maddie's former boss and friend, Katie Widmeyer. My heart dropped. And I really didn't believe it at first. It just really didn't seem real. But then following up with that, just the lack of information

quite clearly created so much terror in our community. I think. Yeah, people, you know, I didn't know how to act. I was never a gun owner. In that instance, at which someone could come into your home, it really changed my mind about that. Things changed that day. No doubt about it. The day after. By now the public had heard the names of the victims of the killings on King Road.

Maddie, Kaylee, Zana and Ethan. There were no words big enough to describe the shock or the anger. Young women don't deserve to die at all, but pursuing an education in a place where they felt like they were safe. The job facing the small force at the Moscow Police Department was monstrous. Right away they called in the FBI and Idaho State Police, but they'd quickly found an important clue. The killer had left behind a knife sheath, like this one, on the bed where Maddie and Kaylee were killed. A sheath, as

investigators soon learned from these records they received from Amazon, that was identical to the one Brian Koberger bought months before he'd even moved to Washington. And two days after the murders, on November 15th, those records show, Coburger was back on Amazon at 434 a.m. looking at K-bars. He even clicked buy now and began the checkout process before exiting. The next morning, Coburger googled the words, University of Idaho Murders, apparently for the first time. We know you have questions, and so do we. That same day, Wednesday, three days after the murders,

police finally held a news conference. We will do everything we can to solve this. Thank you. On November 18th, five days after the murders, Koberger's browsing history showed a program with a title card, The Perfect Killing Machine, Ted Bundy's Serial Killer. After, he watched a YouTube video about the King Road victims. There are plenty of questions and very few answers.

Then, also on the 18th, state licensing records show that Koberger went to the DMV and replaced the Pennsylvania plates on his white Hyundai Elantra with plates from Washington State, and took these pictures of his car and the new plates. Welcome back. The eyes of the nation are on the Idaho quadruple murders. And over the next six weeks, records show,

photos and videos and news updates about the King Road murders were viewed or saved on Koberger's phone at least 60 times. He was collecting everything, all the reporting about the incident. It's very common. By November 22nd, nine days after the murders, the Idaho State Police Laboratory had isolated DNA found on that knife sheath left in Maddie Mogens' bed and sent it to an outside lab to try to find the identity of the donor. That same day, as Amazon records received by investigators show, Koberger searched for a utility knife sheath and a K-bar leather sheath, but again made no purchase. It was around the same time, as revealed by court papers, that Koberger looked into deleting

his Amazon account activity. A week later, as November came to a close, these selfies turned up on Koberger's phone. He also watched a program about Ted Bundy with photos of Maddie and Kaylee, and then did a Google search of his own name. In early December, guys have all heard about this quadruple murder. Kohlberger was still watching videos like these, original Night Stalker, and these about infamous serial killers.

And after midnight on December 6th, Record Show was searching Amazon again, this time for a K-Bar knife and a sheath. So whether he was planning to be able to show, if anybody came around to see him, that he actually had a sheath for it, and he couldn't have been him, who would have it? Or maybe you don't think you're going to get captured and you're thinking about doing it again. That same week, authorities told the public to be on the lookout for a car, similar to the one Koberger drove,

a white Hyundai Elantra. By December 10th, the DNA on that knife sheath had been checked against profiles in the two smallest genealogy databases, which have only about two million samples. No match. So, the FBI uploaded the DNA profile to another platform with millions more possible matches.

This database was used even though its terms of service prohibit law enforcement from using customer data. Genetic genealogist C.C. Moore. Several years ago, the Department of Justice put together guidelines that they would like us all to follow, including federal employees like the FBI. But it's not a law.

These are guidelines. They are suggestions. And so if a federal employee is the one doing the genetic genealogy or if an agency is getting federal funds, they are supposed to follow that. But it's not a final law. So in this investigation, the FBI skirted its own policy. And so the FBI decided that this was a big enough threat

to public safety and that there was an urgency. And so they got clearance to upload to the MyHeritage database, surreptitiously. MyHeritage has nine million donors. As the FBI worked to narrow down the pool of suspects by using that genetic genealogy, Brian Kohlberger's father flew from Pennsylvania to Washington to accompany his son

on the drive home for the holiday break. And during the course of this ride, it has been explained to me, the father starts getting suspicions. They're looking for a white car. My son drives a white car. Indeed. He lives 10 miles away from the murder scene.

He has emotional problems. Could he be involved in this? On December 15th in the early morning hours, Koberger watched a video on his phone containing this quote. It read, Something is wrong with me. I can't be who I need to be. Something is wrong with me. Will it last for eternity? It doesn't fit into society.

Then, later that morning, How you morning, how y'all doing today? The Coburgers father and son were pulled over in Indiana. Right up on the back end of that van. Not once, but twice. For following too closely. Three days after the Coburgers arrived back home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, the FBI had traced the DNA on the knife sheath to a geographic area, the northeast, then to a family, the Coburgers, and finally settled on a likely suspect in the murders on King Road, Brian Coburger. Later that week, two more selfies of Koberger

in a black hoodie showed up on his phone. And as Christmas came and went, a source close to the investigation has confirmed, his family noticed he was acting oddly. He's sorting his garbage, he's wearing gloves, and one of the other family members, a sister, comes up to the father and says in effect, Dad, Brian could possibly be involved in these murders.

Kohlberger's father and entire family were in for a terrible awakening. December 27, 2022, Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. Investigators needed a sample of Brian Koberger's DNA to see if it matched the sample found on the knife sheath presumably left by the killer in Maddie Mogens' bed. So under cover of darkness, they grabbed some trash outside the Koberger home, flew the sample to Idaho, and tests showed there was a high probability it came from the biological father

of the person who left the DNA on the sheath at the crime scene. That same day on Koberger's phone, a clip was played from a YouTube program called Ted Bundy, the essence of a psychopath. My name is Ted Bundy. Later, Coburger dressed in a black hoodie the same way Bundy is pictured on that program, took two selfies.

Then, two days later, on Thursday, December 29th, just before midnight, Brian Coburger pulled up a song on his phone by Britney Spears. The title? Criminal. He is a killer just for fun, fun, fun, fun. He listened to an edited version that had been slowed down and posted on YouTube. He's got no conscience.

He's got none, none, none, none. It seems highly unlikely Brian Kohlberger knew as he listened to that song that a special tactical team was nearby watching him. And at 33 minutes after midnight, the snipers on that team reported seeing a man in a black hoodie turning on a light and entering the kitchen. And then, observing the man going to the garage, returning and wearing rubber gloves, handling a plastic baggie. And then, about 1.14 a.m., Brian Koberger's world came crashing down. The police come bashing down the door. They break windows.

They tie zip ties around his parents. And then he's let out and he gets in the back seat of the patrol car and he says, well, you know, maybe we should get a cup of coffee when this is over. As if he thinks this is going to have a happy ending and life is going to go back to normal. Brian Kohlberger was under arrest.

The news was breaking. Just moments from now, police in Moscow, Idaho will hold a news conference. Coverage worldwide. It's the breakthrough their families have been desperate for. You saw pictures of him when it came out. What was your first reaction to it? I think I just thought he was a nobody. Like I think that he was someone who the girls probably would never have noticed.

Which is maybe the problem. Exactly. Hours after Koberger's arrest, Pullman police served a search warrant on his apartment. Police department search warrant! And 51 days after four murders sparked a manhunt and left a small university town frozen in fear. Brian, Brian, did you do it?

Brian, did you do it? Brian Coburger was led into a Pennsylvania courtroom for an extradition hearing. He was flown back to Pullman, Washington the next day and then took a drive, familiar to him by now, to Moscow. State of Idaho versus Brian C. Kohlberger. Then Kohlberger appeared before an Idaho judge a mere mile and a half from an active crime scene he stood accused of creating. He was charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of burglary.

Do you understand? Yes. Months later, a judge entered a not-guilty plea on Kohlberger's behalf. But when the state announced it would seek the death penalty for Kohlberger, the process slowed to a crawl. And as the community waited in limbo, the House Hunt King Road became a shrine of sorts, a must-see for visitors to Moscow, until the university tore it down

last year. Well this is a huge story around the world. Yeah. But what about locally? What about at home? I think at home we really ignore it a little bit and there's just a little bit of a hands-off like they don't know what's gonna happen, what's the fallout, whether or not justice is gonna be served. And it was in the name of justice,

Koberger's defense team said, that a motion was filed to move the trial from Moscow to Boise in search of an impartial jury, a motion the judge granted. And so Idaho State Police flew Brian Koberger south to await trial in the Ada County Jail. Koberger's trial will be the latest high-profile case moved to Boise from more rural parts of the state. The others being the trials of Lori Vallow-Daybell and Chad Daybell.

Both were convicted in connection with the murders of Daybell's first wife Tammy and Vallow's two children. Madison County prosecuting attorney Rob Wood got those verdicts and knows what it will be like when Coburger's trial begins this summer. What's the pressure on you as a prosecutor in a in such a huge case that so many people are watching? You certainly feel it when Dateline's doing shows about your case. You feel it when Netflix has a special out. And it certainly adds a different dynamic than what we're used to. Do you have any advice for the prosecutors in the Kohlberger case, knowing what you went through?

I guess the one bit of advice I'd have is, you know, when you see all the cameras rolling and the people lining up, you just kind of put it out of your head and just go do what you got to do. And when the trial starts, what Brian Koberger's defense will want to do is create as much doubt as possible. And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects, that should cause you some questions and concerns. MUSIC

MUSIC MUSIC The Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho. This is where they'll try him, starting with jury selection on July 30th, barring delay. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and for potential jurors that means an extra set of questions. In capital cases, jurors are questioned on their beliefs on the death penalty. Drew Simshaw is a law professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

The court wants to know, would this juror be open to all of the potential punishments that are on the table, be it life in prison or be it death? So if it's determined that a juror would not be able to faithfully and impartially apply the law at the sentencing phase, they would be excused from the jury. And so, those left will serve on what's known as a death-qualified jury. There's concerns that these juries, in weeding out certain potential jurors, would have fewer women, fewer African Americans, fewer people of certain religious faiths that tend to be opposed to the death penalty.

Your jury is going to look less representative of the general population. It's going to be more white males, and it's going to be more people who are prone to convict. So what kind of people will each side want on that jury for a trial that may last at least three months? Well, I would be looking to put on the jury as a prosecutor, people who can follow a lot of detail. Former Idaho Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Dave Leroy has been practicing law in the state for more than 50 years. I want people who have a penchant for organizing large bodies of information into understandable patterns and themes.

And for Brian Koberger's attorneys? I'm looking for jurors who might be disinclined to believe law enforcement. I want people of great human empathy, great human conditions who are inclined to be skeptics. About, perhaps most of all, about that K-bar knife sheath, the one that Amazon records show Koberger bought eight months before the murder, and which the state will allege

he left behind in Maddie Mogin's bed. That sheath could become the very centerpiece of the trial, the smoking gun, unless it isn't. Your Honor, we're here because the state has alleged that a single piece of evidence ties Mr. Coburger to this case. In pretrial motions, lead defense attorney Ann Taylor asked the judge to exclude evidence that Koberger's DNA was found on the sheath.

She claimed it was inadmissible because the FBI, as you'll recall, went outside its own guidelines on investigative genetic genealogy to zero win on Brian Koberger. Your Honor, our position is that the court should suppress the I.G.G. identification and everything that flows from that. Court-aligned defense attorney Jill Bolton is not involved in the case, but explained the argument this way.

So in this case, they have a policy. We don't go into private DNA databases without a warrant, right? But they did. Why did they do that? Well, if they didn't have a warrant to go into that database, it's likely because they didn't have probable cause. But Judge Stephen Hippler disagreed. He ruled that the genetic genealogy evidence will be treated at the trial as just another tip that pointed investigators in the direction of Brian Koberger. So the defense will move on to another argument. What the defense is going to do is saying, yeah, we'll concede that there's a match on the DNA, but the real question is, how did the knife sheath get there?

How did the DNA get there? Implying, of course, that Koberger's DNA on the sheath was either planted or transferred somehow. The judge has ruled that he will allow a state expert to testify that the DNA on the knife sheath was the result of direct transfer, meaning Koberger himself likely touched the sheath. But the defense is expected to counter

with arguments like this. DNA is great at telling us who the original source of some material was. It doesn't tell us anything about how it got there. Dr. Greg Hampikian, the former director of Idaho's Innocence Project, has testified as a DNA expert for decades. There's been a number of studies done that show that DNA can be transferred from object

to object to object. You can't tell how many times it's transferred. You can't tell when it transferred. But you can tell who it originally came from. And that's what DNA is great at. And then the defense will almost certainly argue, again and again, that no evidence except that knife sheath links Koberger to a very bloody crime scene. To which the state will argue, how could he have gotten out of there and they found no blood in the car? Surprising to a lot of people.

Well it is. I've got a case in another state. The bedroom is the crime scene of a double homicide. It looks like a butcher shop. And there's no way that the individual would have been able to remove themselves without being immersed in a lot of blood. But there's not a speck of blood on the outside of that room. So does it happen? Is it possible? Absolutely. And as for what's possible,

just last month, the defense revealed in court that it is looking into new information, which may point specifically to another killer. We came across a tip that would appear to be an alternate suspect. We don't know anything about this possible new suspect, but the state may have given the defense a little ammunition. By never testing unidentified blood samples found on a banister inside the house and on

a glove found outside. And by the state not identifying it, they said they couldn't put them through a CODIS, they didn't seem to make any effort to track down who these bloods could have belonged to so that they could have dismissed them. But it now allows Coburg's defense to raise the specter of, ha ha ha, there were other people there that night. Spokane, Washington defense attorney Derek Reed agrees. He's not involved in the case, but he's been keeping track of developments.

So as a defense attorney, what I'm doing is I'm saying they don't want you to have that answer because it topples their house of cards. And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects, that should cause you some questions and concerns. When they want to take somebody's life, all of your questions should be answered. Especially perhaps about the young woman, the apparent witness, who later looked at a picture of Brian Koberger and said, I have no idea who this is. Oh boy.

On such questions, a trial can turn. There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Keith and Blaine, available Wednesday. There was a time in American courtrooms when an airtight case for the state meant simply this. To hear former Idaho Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Dave Leroy tell it. When I began prosecuting cases 50 years ago, a dead solid, locked, perfect case was one fingerprint and one eyewitness.

How things have changed. And in the Koberger case, there is one eyewitness, how things have changed. And in the Coburger case, there is one eyewitness, all right. Dylan Mortenson, the King Road roommate who opened her bedroom door that night and later told police she had seen a man in black clothing with bushy eyebrows walking past her as she stood frozen in shock. A man who then left the house while Dylan locked herself in her bedroom. Prosecutors will use that thumbs-up selfie Coburger took hours later to show the jury what his eyebrows looked like at the time of the murder.

But there is also this, the sort of thing defense attorneys dream of. Dylan was interviewed by the police four times. The first one, she brings up caveats. She says, by the police four times. The first one, she brings up caveats. She says, I was drunk that night. She said, I was sort of in a dreamlike state. And then she's shown a mugshot sort of photo,

and she says, I have no idea who this is. Oh, boy. It's giving the defense evidence that they can take to the jury and raise questions. Remember, too, that Dylan said the man was wearing a ski mask. The state has more evidence, of course, including the security video of Suspect Vehicle 1 and the fact that Koberger's phone was turned off

during the time the murders occurred, about which the defense has claimed. That's his alibi. He was out driving around at 4 o'clock in the morning looking at stars on a cloudy freezing night. We cannot know. Of course we can't. What a jury will think of the case against Brian Coburger.

Or whether the state can prove that the orgy of violence perpetrated on Maddie Mogan, Katie Goncalves, Xanacernododle, and Ethan Chapin was his doing. But this? This we do know. I mean the stakes here are enormous. The whole world is still watching, listening, and following this. And if Coburger is convicted, prosecutors will offer reasons, aggravating factors, they're called, that those crimes deserve the death penalty, that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and exhibited utter

disregard for human life. The defense will try to save Coburger's life with factors that mitigate or weaken the arguments for death, which, if it comes to that, might be more difficult here than in other states. Idaho supports capital punishment overwhelmingly. Defense attorney Derek Reed. I suspect that the wishes of the victim's family were paramount, which any prosecutor has to take into consideration. It's true.

Kaylee Gonzalvez's family has been vocal in its call for Coburger to face the death penalty. If attacking somebody while they're sleeping in their bed isn't probable cause for you to be... Unprovoked. ...removed from the planet, what does? The defense asked the judge if it could argue that Coburger's autism spectrum disorder is a reason that he

should not be subject to the death penalty. Idaho defense attorney Jill Bolton. Just as you can't decide that someone should be put to death based on their race, so too should you not make the decision to put someone to death based on their disability. And autism is a disability. When you have a jury that's going to be watching his reactions, and if he has a flat affect with no emotions as a result of autism disability,

then the jury should know about that. And they should take that into consideration before making such a decision. But the judge ruled that Coburger's autism can only be brought up in court if Coburger takes the stand and testifies. If Coburger is found guilty, and if he is sentenced to death, both big ifs, well, then he would become the tenth person

on the state's death row, but the first sentenced after the governor this spring signed a law that makes the firing squad its primary mode of execution. Though the likelihood he'd face a firing squad its primary mode of execution. Though the likelihood he'd face a firing squad anytime remotely soon is nearly nil. Gonzaga University law professor Drew Simshaw. The appeals could take decades, so inmates can spend decades on death row. And they end up dying of old age anyway. Some might.

Some might. Of course, there's always talk that a trial might still be avoided if Coburger would agree to plead guilty in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty. But that's mere speculation, given what Coburger's attorneys have said. From what I understand, this is not guilty. I didn't do it. From the outside looking in, a win is avoiding the death penalty, potentially a hung jury,

and hoping that you may be able to work something out to avoid the death penalty in the long term. Understandably, defense and Mr. Kohlberger are probably of the position that there's only one victory and that's not guilty. That's a tough road to hoe. A tough row. That's an understatement for what life has been like

for all the families of the victims the last two and a half years. The ripples, as always, extend. In this case, to so many, including Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn. Is it true that Ashlyn is sort of unwilling to come home because of where you are in proximity to the area where this happened?

So she moved away. She just needed to get away and regroup. She wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew who she was, didn't ask questions. She could make new friends, start a new life. But do you hope she gets to the point someday where she's more comfortable to come back home? What do you think it'll take? I'm not sure. I think that once the trial is over, I think that that's really when

you're going to be able to start grieving the right way. Took quite a hit, didn't she? Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's not the same. One terrible, terrible night in a small college town, part of the history of the place now, always will be, no matter what happens to the case against the criminology student who came to town, authorities say, with a knife in his bag.

There's nothing that will ever take that pain away, but maybe after the trial, they'll have more better days than bad days. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 Central. I'm Lester Holt, for all of us at NBC News, good night.