Investigate Earth Conspiracy Podcast - Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty | The Idaho Murders Case Takes A Turn

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

The nation watched in horror as four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin — were brutally murdered in their off-campus home, a crime that shook the quiet town of Moscow to its core. Months later, Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with the killings, sparking a high-profile legal battle and endless speculation. Now, in a stunning development, Kohberger has pleaded guilty — avoiding a lengthy trial but raising new questions about justice, closure, and the truth behind that tragic night. In this episode, we break down the plea deal, what it means for the victims’ families and the community, and how this unexpected twist changes the course of one of America’s most talked-about murder cases.Check out our merchandise: https://investigateearthstore.com

It's just for a minute I'd fall asleep and not dream or be doing. I don't know most of the times I think of that. Hello and welcome back to Investigator with Podcast. I'm your host, Chad, alongside my beautiful wife, Sherry. On tonight's episode, we turn our attention back to one of the most shocking and heartbreaking crimes in recent memory. The murders of four University of Idaho students in the quiet town of Moscow, Idaho. It's a case that grip the nation.

Four young lives brutally taken in the middle. of the night, a community left shattered, and a suspect, Brian Coburger, arrested months later after an intense investigation that spanned states and relied on DNA, self-on data, and sheer persistence. Now nearly two years later, we've learned Coburger has agreed to a plea deal, avoiding trial and the possibility of the death penalty, but leaving many questions hanging in the air. Why take a deal now? What does it say about the strength of the case? And what about the family's long fight for justice?

We're going to break it all down tonight, the backstory, the plea, and what it really means going forward. Guys, welcome to the show. It is July the 6th, 2025. And the name of this song is Shivers, Image of You by Loving Calibur, which we have played this song multiple times. We probably did three or four episodes

on the Idaho murders. This was some two years ago. We even brought on a very reputable and pretty famous actually CIA officer. He's been on multiple television shows by the name of Jason Hansen. If you guys have not listened to those episodes, I do encourage you to go back and listen.

Listen, because especially Jason, how he breaks down the crime scene, how he also offers up important tips, especially for parents that have college students in college right now. I think this case really showed the vulnerability of college students at some time. We know that the Idaho house was an in and outhouse. There was people in and out of this house all the time. And when you're in college, you just don't think about something so horrific and so gruesome could possibly happen to you. but this case really shined a light on the safety of a lot of college students around the world. And now we have Brian Coburger. He is pleading guilty.

He has said that he did the crimes and he's going to get four life sentences without the possibility of parole. But many of the family members right now feel like it's a gut punch to them because some of them wanted the death penalty. They wanted what some are referring to is they just wanted vengeance, not justice, but sometimes vengeance. is justice. And some people may disagree with that. And there's a wide range of people out there that some believe in the death penalty. Some do not. And we'll get into that in just a little bit. But I know that Steve Gonzalez has been out there fighting so hard for his daughter. He's been on every single news station. He can possibly go on. And we're actually going to play his interview after the plea deal in just a little bit to where he talks about it just felt like he kind of

did his daughter wrong. Yeah, he felt like he failed Kaley that he trusted the wrong people to do the right thing. And for them just to come up with this plea deal and actually Brian Colberger's team is the one that came to the prosecution asking for a plea deal. Yeah. And they never even consulted with the families, never weighed in on what they wanted. They just gave him a little letter on Sunday night and said, hey, by the way, we're going to have a plea bargain and this is it. We're done. Well, I mean, I think one thing, especially with the murders that we've covered and trials we've covered in the past over the past seven years, you know, there's one thing. There are some prosecution teams that really do actually weigh the consensus of the family members. And it seems like in this case, they did not do that whatsoever.

They just seemed like they didn't care at all what the family felt, whether or not they agreed with a plea deal or not, based on everything we have heard leading into this case, which was set for August, that the prosecution had a very, very strong case to absolutely pin Brian Koberger as the person that committed these murders. And so, therefore, if you have a strong case, and everything leading into the trial, all of the pre-trial motions that Brian Koberger and the defense team brought to the court, all of them were turned down. So it looked very bad for Koeberger and it looked very good for the prosecution. This was completely different than, say, the Karen Reed trial where it looked like everything was kind of going in the defenses side. You know, there was more on the defense side as far as proving beyond reasonable out that their defendant didn't commit the crime versus the prosecution's ability to do that.

But it seemed like in the Koberger case, this was opposite. The prosecution, I believe, had the evidence. They had the data. They had everything they need to pin him to the wall and actually get the death penalty on a table and convict on this. It's just mind blowing that they did not at all consult with the family. And now they feel like a second time that they've lost. They've kind of lost their daughter again in some ways. Yeah.

And why even have a death penalty out there if you are not going to use it on somebody like Brian Colberger, somebody that brutally murdered four innocent college students with a K-bar knife. This huge K-bar knife probably went through their entire bodies. It was so big and just awful. And just to learn about not only just stabbing him, but the other things. And we'll probably get into that later in this episode. But it was really gruesome. It was brutal.

And if you're not going to use the death penalty on somebody like Brian Culberger, why even have it in play? Yeah, exactly. Now, I mean, this was the absolute prime case that you should present a death penalty case. I mean, I can't think of any others besides serial killers or whatever. But this was just something so gruesome, so graphic, so young of victims. They were literally just coming home after a night of hanging out with their friends, having a good time like college students do. And they go to their house thinking that everything's going to be normal just like every other night. But yet this time they don't wake up.

And some of them fight for their lives during this, during this brutal ordeal that happened. And I just can't believe that in this case over any that the prosecution wouldn't come to the family and say, hey, look, guys, this is what they're asking us to do. What do you guys think about this? What's the consensus? They didn't want to do it. Right. And there are maybe some reasons why they didn't. I mean, you could think maybe because there was half the family that maybe didn't care whether or not it was death penalty or not.

They just wanted justice. They wanted a life sentence to where he never gets out of prison. there could have been family members that pissed off the prosecution, right? That maybe the prosecution kind of went against some of these family members that have spoken out on the media. And especially in some cases, had been, I guess, critical of investigations or prosecution, some of these other things. And obviously you have Steve Gunsavez, which will get to interview in just a little bit, where he really kind of lays it on to prosecution and talks about what his real feelings are about this. And we're going to talk about all of that.

But, guys, we do just want to say, we are. back off vacation. We've been gone for seven days. We did enjoy our vacation a lot. We were moving around a lot for seven or eight days, but it feels weird to not do a podcast. And there's been so many people that reached out and they're like, well, until I came to your social media, I didn't realize your own vacation. But we are. And now it feels weird to be back talking. It's like, oh my gosh, I forgot how to talk on a microphone. I know. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely crazy. But what I thought we would do with this episode is I want to play the plea deal. because this is important. It's important to break it down as we go through it. Listen to what a judge says. The prosecution, listen to Koberger, admitting to the actual crimes itself and the prosecution talking and putting their two cents in, I guess you can say. Then I also want to talk and discuss Steve Gonzalez interview.

I want to get also back to what happened that night. And I think we'll do that to begin with. So on November 13th, 2022, shortly before 4 a.m., for University of Idaho, who students were brutally stabbed to death in their off-campus home at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. Now, the victims were Kaylee Gonzávez, 21, Madison, Maddie Mogan, 21, Zana Kornodal, 20, and Ethan Chappen. Ethan was dating Zana and was staying over that night. Kaylee and Madison were lifelong best friends and housemates share in the same room.

And then you have two other roommates. Bethany Funk and Dylan Mortison were asleep on the first floor and survived. Now, the timeline is Kaylee and Madison went to the corner club bar downtown, then got food at a late night food truck at around 140 a.m. and returned home around 156 a.m. Ethan and Zana attended a party at the Sigma Chai Fraternity house and returned to the King Road home at about 1.45 a.m. Then around 4 a.m., investigators believed someone entered the house and killed the four victims likely while they were asleep or in their rooms. Their surviving roommates reportedly heard noises but did not. immediately recognized what had happened. One of them even opened her bedroom door and saw a mask man in black clothing

leaving through the sliding glass door. However, 911 was not called until just before noon, more than eight hours later, by one of the surviving roommates or friends. And this was something that obviously has been a huge question, especially giving some of the explanation and description of one, at least one of the roommates, the surviving roommates, saw, potentially saw Brian Coburger in the house, actually encountered him during this time, and then for whatever reason, did not call 911 until eight hours later. Now, there are many reasons for this.

We can speculate all day long. You know, were they shocked? Were they, did they have too much to drink that night? And then they kind of just went and lay down and went to sleep. Maybe they were thinking, what am I seeing? Maybe I'm just thinking too much. But you also have to remember that these college students were used to having people in their house. a lot all the time.

And many times when police would show up or noise complaints or whatever, the actual people that lived there were not even home. Right. And it was just random people there. And they're like, well, we don't exactly know where they are right now. So then they had to kind of go track down one of the roommates. Well, I think after we discovered the 911 calls and the text messages the night before between Dylan and Bethany, they were scared shitless.

They knew something was going on. Yeah. Especially Dylan. And Dylan is the one that opened her door. three times and peaked out and pretty much came face to face with Brian Colberger. I just wonder if Brian Clover realized he came face to face with Bethany or not. I'm sure. Because why did he just leave outside of the sliding glass door instead of killing her and sparing her life?

Because Bethany, our Dylan, ended up running down to Bethany's room, which was on the basement level, the main level, where the front door is in the middle of the night. And they both were on their social media for some time that night. And then for a while, it kind of just went blank. And then they woke up, started texting everybody in the house. Nobody was responding. And that's when they started reaching out to other people. And then one of their friends with the boyfriend Hunter, who discovered Zana came over.

Yeah. To help them go through the house because they were scared. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure. I mean, you know, if, if, and the weird thing was the initial 911 call eight hours later just for noon, I guess, the next day, or I guess the same day, because it was 4 a.m. at this time, you know, it's like no one really even explained that there were people that were stabbed to death, that there was blood anywhere. No one even ever mentioned that on any 911 cause. There was, I think the actual description was there was someone passed out. Passed out. Because that's what they originally thought that Zana was on the floor, passed out, drunk from the night before. But when Hunter saw her, he yelled at them three times, get out, get out, get out. So obviously he heard. something, but I think, or he saw something, but I think it was not related to the girls very well

that were on the 911 call. And the 911 operator was not the friendliest either. And, you know, she didn't let them go into details about what was going on. She just needed to know the immediate what's going on right now. Yeah. Well, I can tell you also, you know, the question about why Koberger maybe didn't kill Dylan was likely because he just murdered four people. And murdering four people is not going to be in a very easy thing, especially if some of them are fighting back. And so the likelihood of him murdering someone else that night, probably in his mind, he was thinking, look, this is just going to prolong, you know, my escape, getting out of here without being caught tonight.

Maybe there's someone that's going to come home. We don't know. But he chose to not do anything to the surviving roommates instead leave. And likely this was because he was exhausted. This may also be the reason why the nice sheath was left or dry. to begin with because he was completely blitzed out of his mind. I'm sure he had some type of mega adrenaline rush during this entire ordeal. And when you get into these like fight or flight modes, which he obviously was in a fight mode,

he was in a vicious, murderous mode where he was killing these people. Allegedly they say that he was really only there for one of the roommates initially, but then I guess he decided he had to kill three others. But either way, he was still in this adrenaline rush. you know, moment. And when you're in that moment and then you come across another roommate, which I guess you decide not to kill during this whole thing, you're thinking about getting to my car, making sure what is my next steps,

how am I going to make sure that I'm covering my tracks and doing all these things? He was overwhelmed. He was task saturated is what they call it in aviation. And when you're tasked saturated and you get behind your initial plan and you start getting behind and you falling behind, especially with this adrenaline rush, that's where just one little nice sheath, which is the most obvious thing that you don't want to leave. leave can fall and you don't even realize it until it's too late.

And when he went upstairs to kill Maddie, because that's who he was going to kill, I don't think he realized that Kaylee was going to be in the bed with him. And so he was fighting off two girls. And that's how he left the knife sheath under. It was partially under Maddie's body and in her comforter. Yeah. But, you know, he had a surprise element as well because he wasn't expecting anyone else up there. I think his main target was Maddie.

Yeah. And then here's Kaylee. and then when he's going down after he kills them, Zana's up getting her door-dash order. And he basically chases her and kills her. And then goes and kills Ethan sleeping in her bed. Yeah. And so there were three females, everyone, for those that don't know the case,

three females, one of the male victims was a boyfriend of one of the female victims, just so you guys know. And then so the investigation, getting to that just briefly early on, the police described the attack as targeted, though they did not immediately identify a suspect. And that's why many media outlets were saying, how do you know is targeted if you don't even know or have any clue who it is? I remember initially, this was like the day after they were murdered.

The police came out in a press conference was like there's no threat to the public. And everyone was, and we talked about it on the podcast like, how is there no threat to the public when you have zero clue who just murdered four college students in their house in the middle of the night? And yet you're telling the public that nothing to worry about here, No, you should have worried about it. Number one, they should have, at the very least, canceled all classes, canceled everything, which I think they did. They did.

But they also should have been making very, very clear this public message that you all need to be aware. Do whatever you got to do because we don't know who it is right now. Make sure you're walking with a neighbor or have somebody with you at all times. Make sure you lock your doors. Those kind of things. They should have at least said, I don't, I think it was not of the community's best interest, say there is no immediate threat. No, absolutely not.

And so there was no sign of forced entry. Investigators recovered a K-bar-style knife sheath on the bed next to one of the victims, which ultimately became a key piece of evidence, cell phone peeing, CCTV footage, and a white Hyundai Alantra. Seen in the area became the focus of the investigation. Now, the arrest of Brian Coburger on December 30th, 2022, this was nearly seven weeks later, police arrested Brian Christopher Coburger 28 at his parents' home in Albrightville, Pennsylvania. he had driven across the country after the murders.

So who was Brian Coburger? He was a PhD student in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from Moscow. He was reportedly highly interested in criminal behavior and psychology. He previously studied psychology and criminal justice at the Sales University in Pennsylvania. And in the months before the murders, he had posted on Reddit asking ex-cons about how it felt to commit a crime, seemingly part of a research project on a criminal decision-making. process. WSU classmates described him as socially awkward, but very intelligent.

And so the key pieces of evidence obviously was the DNA. The nice sheath left at the scene had DNA that matched Koberger's father that was then confirmed to Kovberger himself after the arrest. And so you think about like the ancestry DNA stuff and all of these various ancestry databases, not necessarily ancestry DNA in this one. This was a public database allegedly, but it still was familial DNA, which they linked. linked Coburger because of his father. Yeah, but the direct DNA on the ninth sheath was Brian Cobur's DNA. Yes.

But they found him through the family member of his dad by going through their trash in Pennsylvania. Yeah. And then you have cell phone data show that Coburger's phone was in the area of the victim's house on several occasions before the murders and shut off during the window of the crime, which is also just another assinine thing to me. If you are Brian Coburger, you're studying criminology, you're studying all. this stuff. You've been to college for multiple years. You're a PhD student. And yet you're doing the

very obvious things that you obviously should not do. If you're thinking about like, hey, they're going to track myself on. They're going to do these things. You should already know that going forward. So you don't turn your phone off and then turn it back on and do all this stuff. That is obviously key indicators that you are suspicious of something and especially being in the area. Right. And sometimes it's not the evidence they gather. It's the lack of evidence that they gather. by turning your phone off. How obvious is that when you're turning your phone off right before the crime? And then when you finish the crime, turning it back on.

So I think it's the lack of evidence that gives them the evidence that it was him. Yeah. And then so the car surveillance, there were multiple cameras that caught a white Honda, a launcher circling area around the victim's house in early hours of November 13th. Surviving roommates' accounts told police that she saw a mass man leaving the house shortly after 4 a.m. And so there's a lot of ideas for motive. And to this day, police and prosecutors have not explicitly revealed a motive, but there are theories saying that obsession one or more of the victims, particularly Kaylee, though it's not 100% confirmed, a thrill kill or an attempt to commit the perfect crime, even though he felt miserably at that, or his apparent fascination with serial killers and violent crime. And you could say, was he fascinated with serial killers or was this just his fascination in his willingness or want to learn based on why.

and what he was involved in in his education. But obviously, after these murders, it seems like even the reason why he went to college for this stuff was to eventually commit these murders. Right. I think it's probably been in his mind his whole life and he had this kind of thing. And it's probably because he is part of the in-cell community where he is involuntarily celibate and can't get a girlfriend and he hates women. But let me tell you as far as who is a 10th.

pack person was or his target, I think it was Maddie. Because Maddie was still living in the apartment. Kaylee had already moved out. So that's why I feel like the target was Maddie. Kaylee just happened to come for the weekend to show Maddie her new car. She was getting ready to move. She had already moved out of the house. She brought her dog Murphy with her.

They were going to go out and have a good time. But I really feel like maybe he had a target for both of them, but I think it was more directly towards Maddie than it was Kaylee. Yeah, for sure. Now, Coburger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one-count of burglary. He waived extradition and was brought back to Idaho shortly after his arrest. He pleaded not guilty initially to all charges. His attorneys filed multiple motions challenging the evidence, including arguments over the validity of the DNA evidence and the grand jury indictment. And all of those things basically got thrown out. Essentially everything the defense did

pretrial motion-wise was completely denied. And so I think this was really when the defense started thinking alongside of Coburger saying, hey, if we, can get a plea deal, you might want to get one because you're likely going to be convicted and convicted on death row. I mean, they're going to kill you. Right. And like Steve said, even if he was convicted and he was going to be in front of the firing squad, it would not happen for years anyways.

But it's the point that he would be living on death row and having to live life like that, knowing that one day you are going to be facing that. But now he is not facing that. He is facing life in prison without the possibility. of a firing squad. The only thing he has to face now is the other jail population. Are they going to retaliate? Are they going to try to kill him in prison similar to Jeffrey Dahmer?

Yeah, by the way, I need to write that down prison life because we're going to talk about that. Yes. Because this is something obviously he's going to be facing now. And so there are some people that might wonder how will his prison life be. We'll talk about that. But let's go ahead and get into the plea deal. We will cut in as much as we can. if you've already heard it, you know, you can still listen to some of our input and thought as we go forward through this plea deal.

It's not that that long. But either way, here it is. This is the judge that starts talking. And then this is the process that just happened a few days ago. All right. This is CR0123431665. Defendant is present in custody with counsel, Ms. Thompson, Ms. Jennings. And pardon me, Ms. Taylor, Ms. Massoff and Ms. Barlow.

the state's present with Mr. Thompson, Mr. Horowitz, Ms. Jennings, and Mr. Nye is here as well. Am I miss anybody? I'm sorry. Ms. Allen is here as well. The Allen is here as well. Very well. Thank you. All right.

We are here today to entertain a change of plea. Before I start, I want to address some issues. of concern and otherwise. First, I appreciate everybody in attendance today being on their best behavior. Please, no outbursts or demonstrations. Any such conduct will result in immediate removal and may result in an inability to attend further court proceedings in this case. I want to point out that there have been calls by some for the public to contact me and my office in an attempt to influence my decision-making in this case. This has been extraordinarily disruptive for court staff and the ability for them to get work done, not only in this case, but in other

cases where defendants are entitled to have their cases processed. And frankly, as important, if not more so, for victims to have their cases processed in those cases. It's also highly inappropriate. A court is not supposed to, and this court will never take into account public sentiment in making an opinion regarding its judicial decisions in cases. All right, so that was the judge saying that, you know, no matter what, no public phone calls or harassment is going to change his mind about what he's going to do about the change of plea. But obviously, it did not change the court's mind or the prosecution's mind as far as what the family

may have thought about this, although they didn't have an opportunity to hear the family's side of this because they didn't ask the family. They did not consent to the family. And now, of course, the judge is bitching about people calling the office. And we also have to remember the people that are calling the office are taxpayers. and I think they do have a right to opinions in this matter that if it should go forward or not, because we are paying for this trial. Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a lot of ways you can do that. You can be protesters. You can go out there on the streets and make your voice heard that way. But like you said, it doesn't matter what you think. And it obviously doesn't matter about what the family of the actual victims think. It matter about the court because we're the almighty court. And there's no one that's going to say what I'm going to do. And it's just like a power trip.

And this is what I have. a problem with the justice system in general today, especially prosecutors, you know, I have saw so many instances of prosecutors that either withheld evidence or did not want to specifically put forth evidence because it may hurt their case. It may actually shine a light of the person they're prosecuting maybe being more innocent than guilty. And so they hide the evidence like this because it's a game to them. It is a, it is like a football. It's like a football game. You know, they want to win against the defense no matter what. And in some cases, that includes sending someone innocent to prison or maybe even on death row.

And so it's just to me, this is like a power statement. This is like no matter what you think, we don't give a shit because we're the court, we're the almighty. And we've just seen this so much in the justice system, especially over the past eight or nine, ten years. And it seems like it's getting worse. Let's listen to some more of this. Court should. And I always will make decisions based on where the facts. and the law lead me. Period. I have not read any of the numerous messages, nor listen to any of the

numerous voicemails that have been sent to me and my staff. Those have all been forward to security, and where appropriate, to law enforcement. I ask that you not continue to mount such campaigns or to send me information like this, because, again, it is not appropriate and frankly not something I would take into account when deciding a matter in a case like this. I also want people to understand some very basic concepts about the ideas of separation of powers and what the court's duties are and what the duties and the rights of the executive, or in this case, the prosecuting attorney is. The executive, the elected prosecutor, is the sole authority in deciding what charges to pursue, including whether, as well as what penalties to ask for, and what penalties to pursue, including the death penalty.

This court cannot require the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, nor would it be appropriate for this court to attempt to do that. This court, in considering a plea agreement, if it were to reject this plea agreement, cannot force the state to seek the death penalty. my role and power in considering a plea agreement is extremely limited. My rule is to ensure that the defendant's plea is given freely, voluntarily, and intelligently. If those things are met, I can only reject a plea, such as the one in this case, where I'm not being asked to agree to the sentence in advance. if I can only reject it, for example, if the defendant does not meet or admit to all the elements of the crime. That is, I can ensure what is called a factual basis to the plea. Finally, I want to offer my apologies to all the families, including the victim's families, the families of the defendant,

for the short notice for today's hearing, and I'm sure what must have been the hurry, efforts to get here. I, like most everyone else, learned of this plea agreement Monday afternoon and had no inkling of it beforehand. Prior to that time, I was under the belief that this case was proceeding to trial, as had been indicated. And my staff and I were busy continuing to work on preparations to have potentially 10,000 citizens of Ada County come to jury duty starting in mid-July. with the questionnaire process in mid-July.

Once I learned of the defendant's decision to change his plea in this case, it was important that I take the plea as soon as possible because of the extraordinary administrative efforts that were otherwise attendant to the process of getting this trial potentially underway on time and including the significant process of bringing, again, potentially up to 10,000 jurors to come in and fill out juror questionnaires prior to the beginning of the Vordair process. I want to stop for just a second because there's going to be some people to disagree me on this, but I want to make something very clear, too. Who the prosecutors are in the prosecution team is very dependent on what they're going to do for either the families based on maybe certain opinions or thoughts from the process.

prosecution looking at the families. It's also going to be very dependent on what the prosecution does as far as the political leanings. So the reason I say this, the lead prosecutor in this case is Bill Thompson. He's the Lataw County Prosecuting Attorney. Thompson is officially a Democrat. He has been elected and reelected on Democratic tickets since the first taken office in 1992. Lataw County itself leans Democratic than more than most of Idaho, partly because of the

presence of the University, Idaho, and Moscow, the sheriff and some other county. officials are also Democrats, even though they're Idaho as a whole, a strongly Republican state. In this particular area, it is highly concentrated a Democrat area. Now, why is, why am I bringing up politics in this? Well, we have to understand that most Democrats do not agree with the death penalty, and especially Democrat prosecutors. We have seen this over the past eight years where there would be funded prosecution teams put in place, like in Los Angeles, like in Chicago, like in New York, to where,

they were having this no-bell. We just had an episode with Ken Good. He is heavily behind trying to get off the table, this Nobel thing, to where it's like they're taking down felonies to misdemeanors. They're letting people out without bail, in some cases, violent crimes. And in all of these cases and scenarios and situations, it is Democrat prosecutors that are allowing this stuff to happen. So you may ask yourself, would it have been different?

if it would have been in another county, if there would have been a Republican or conservative prosecuting team versus a Democrat prosecuting team, and I can almost guarantee you that it would have been because that is just the consensus. When you are elected politically on something, and as Democrats, most Democrat politically elected officials do not believe in the death penalty. And then you've got to look at the consensus and makeup of the victims themselves. You know, what would the prosecution team look at the victims themselves? Is there going to be any political motivation?

as far as their decision-making on pursuing a death penalty based on the victims and the actual suspect. Now, you guys might not agree with me on that, but I'm just saying it's something to think about. It definitely is, and I totally agree with you on that. And so it was important that we, if we're going to go down this road, do so expeditiously so that we can avoid those costs and expenses associated with that. otherwise if it was not going to result in a plea or for some reason the plea were to fall through today, that we could continue diligently towards trial at the time specified. And so that obviously required that we act quickly. And so some folks may have not had the amount of time that we would otherwise allow for for them to travel here.

And so again, I apologize for that. I want to make people aware that during the hearing, if you are to leave the courtroom for any reason, you will not be readmitted during the hearing. Also, when we finish the hearing this morning, I ask that the public and media wait in their seats until the victim's families and the defendant's families and others are escorted out of the courtroom before you start to leave. Finally, I want to acknowledge the trial court administrator and her staff, the Ada County Sheriff, and Ada County Fourth District Marshal Service for the huge lift that they've accomplished in preparing for and orchestrating this hearing today, as well as to all the security attendant today that you see, and some of whom you, many of whom you don't see, with less than 48 hours notice. And so I appreciate the hard work that they've been doing.

frankly, some of them while they were on some vacation prior to the trial starting and had to call that short. And so I appreciate very much their professionalism and dedication. All right. That said, let's move to the business of today. I understand the state and the defense have reached a plea agreement in this case for the record. I have a written plea agreement, which indicates in sum the defendant will plead guilty to all five counts in the indictment, burglary, felony, and first-degree murder four counts. The state and the defendant stipulate, that is, that the defense is not free to argue for a lesser sentence at sentencing to the following. that the defendant on the burglary charge will be sentenced to 10 years fixed,

and that the defendant on counts two through five, the four counts of first-degree homicide on each count would receive a fixed life sentence, all five of those counts to run consecutive to one another. Defendant, as part of the plea agreement, waives his right to appeal, as well as his right to appeal the sentence and his right to seek leniency or reconsideration of the sentence under Idaho Criminal Rule 35. This is not a Rule 11 agreement, meaning the court is not bound by the plea agreement

and could impose a different lawful sentence at sentencing. The stipulated agreement between the parties is the maximum on each count. So theoretically, the only thing the court could do would be a lesser sentence at sentencing. But the defendant is not free to ask the court. to do so under the plea agreement. Are there any other material terms of the plea agreement that the parties would like to make, obviously, the plea agreement, the written play agreement will speak for itself and be part of the court record.

Not from the state, Your Honor. Thank you. No, Your Honor. Thank you. All right. Very well. All right. Ms. Taylor, have you had sufficient time to discuss this case and all of its ramifications

with your client? I have, Your Honor. Have you discussed fully with him, his rights, defenses, and possible consequences to him of the guilty plea? Yes, Your Honor. Have you been able to do all the discovery you feel necessary? Yes, Your Honor. And have you informed your client of the importance providing the court truthful and accurate answers in taking this plea today? I have.

Have you apprised your client of any and all offers and counteroffers and answered his questions about those? Yes. Do you consent to the entry of the plea today? I do. I'm Mr. Koeberger. I need to ask you some questions this afternoon, or I guess it's this morning still. I do this to ensure that you understand so that I am assured that you understand the nature of the charges to which I understand you're going to plead guilty as well as the possible consequences to you of your guilty, please. I want to make sure your plea is given voluntarily, and I want to make sure that you actually committed the crimes to which you're pleading guilty because I don't want you to plead guilty to a crime you didn't commit.

If you attempt to plead guilty today, but for some reason, I don't accept your plea, then it is possible that your statements today could be used against you later at trial. Do you understand that? Yes. All right. Thank you. And now, while you're standing, actually, why don't you take the oath from the clerk? Yes.

All right. And Mr. Coburg, just to make it easier, you don't need to stand when you speak to me. I appreciate the sign of respect, but for convenience, you can remain seated, all right? Before I start asking questions today, have you consumed substance questions? Let me ask you, have you consumed any alcohol, drug, or other intoxicating substance that would impair your ability to understand or exercise reasonable judgment? No. you feel like you are thinking clearly today. Yes. All right. I want you to understand what the possible penalties are for each of the crimes, to which I understand you're going to offer a guilty plea today.

They include on count one, the burglary of fine of up to $50,000 and a period of incarceration of up to 10 years in the state penitentiary. You may be required to pay restitution to any victims of the crime. Count two, three, four, and five for first-degree murder. the consequences include a fine of up to $50,000, a period of incarceration of life imprisonment, which is a requirement of a sentence, that it be a life sentence with a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 10 years on each of those counts. In addition, you'd be potentially responsible for a fine of up to $5,000 to each of the victims of your crime, to be enforced in the form of a

civil judgment, to operate as additional punishment. This is in excess of any restitution or fines that the court could order. And again, you may be required to pay restitution to the victims of the crime. You would be required to provide, as to counts one, two, three, four, and five a DNA sample, and a right thumbprint impression and potentially pay for analysis of those samples. You would lose any right to possess, purchase, or carry a firearm, the right to serve on jury duty, the right to hold public office, and the right to vote. Do you understand the charges and all those possible consequences? Yes. You've heard the plea agreement that I talked about today. Do you agree with that play agreement? Yes. And do you understand the nature of the charges that you've been

charged with that I understand you're going to plead guilty today too. Yes. As I indicated, I'm not bound by the plea agreement, but the plea agreement is for the maximum on each count. Do you understand that I'm not bound by the play agreement? Yes. Has anyone promised you that I would be lenient or easy on you if you pled guilty? No. Has anyone threatened you or anyone close to you to get you to plead guilty? No. Has anyone, other than the state's agreements with respect to the play agreement, has anyone promised you anything in exchange for your plea agreement? No. Has anyone told you to be untruthful in answering my questions today? No. Has anyone offered you a reward of any kind other than the plea agreement in order to get you to plead guilty today?

No. Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? Yes. And, Counsel, obviously there have been a number of motions filed to suppress evidence in this case. Other than those filed, are there any other motions that you felt were available with respect to Rule 12? No, Your Honor. And Mr. Colberg, you understand that by entering the guilty plea in this case, you would be giving up your right to appeal any decision this court made. as well as your sins. Yes. Have you had enough time to decide whether or not to plead guilty?

Yes. Are you pleading guilty freely and voluntarily? Yes. Given your choices, do you believe it's in your best interest to plead guilty? Yes. Have you discussed fully the matter of pleading guilty with your attorney, and are you satisfied with the advice you've received? Yes.

Is your attorney advised you to your satisfaction about what your rights are, what your defenses may be, and what the possible consequences to you of your guilty, plea are? Yes. Is your attorney done everything you've asked them to do? Yes. Are you satisfied with their representation of you? Yes. I have received a written guilty plea advisory questionnaire that is purported to be filled out by you. Did you fill that document out? Yes. Did you understand the questions that you answered in this document? Yes. And are the answers that are outlined in this document your answers? Yes. Are those answers truthful? Yes. Did you sign the document? Yes. And this

document outlines many of the rights that you have in this case, should you not plead guilty. Did you understand those rights? Yes. They include a right to a jury trial. Do you understand that? Yes. Include a right to the presumption of innocence. Do you understand that? Yes. You have the right to require the state to prove your guilt as to each element beyond a reasonable doubt? Do you understand that? Yes. They include a right to confront your accusers and cross-examine witnesses presented by the state, including by utilizing the subpoena power of the court to accomplish that.

Do you understand that? Yes. You understand you would have a privilege against self-incrimination and a right to remain silent, meaning you would not be compelled to testify if you did not wish to had you not pled guilty? Yes. You understand you're giving up that privilege and those rights that I've just outlined by pleading guilty? Yes. I want you to understand what the state would have had to have proven at trial had you,

as to the crimes that you're pleading guilty to, had you, if you didn't plead guilty, let me find the document. Hang on a second here. All right. So as to count one burglary, the state would have to have proven that honor about November 13, in 2022 in Latak County, Idaho. You unlawfully entered a residence located at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder.

As to count two, the state would have had to have proven that honor about that same date in Latah County, Idaho. You did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately, with premeditation and malice of forethought, kill and murder Madison Mogan, a human being, by stabbing. Madison Mogan from which she died. As to count three, the state would have had to have proven that on that same date in Laitaq County at that same address, you did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought kill and murder Kaley Gonzalez, a human being by stabbing her from which she died. As to count four, the state would have had to

have proven that honor about that same date in Latoch County, Idaho, you did willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought kill and murder zana kernodal a human being by stabbing her from which she died and then is to count five also murder in the first degree that honor about november 13th 2002 pardon me in laytock county idaho you did willfully unlawfully deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought kill and murder ethan chappen the human being by stabbing him from which he died Do you understand those things the state would have had to have proven? Yes. Do you understand that by pleading guilty, the state no longer has to prove those things because you're admitting those things are true?

Yes. I want to also make, for the record, the defendant has provided with the guilty plea advisory form a document entitled written factual basis. The purports to have the defendant's signature dated 1 July 2020. Did you sign that document? Yes. And did you agree with the written factual basis that is included there? Yes. And then let me ask you, did you, on November 13, 2012,

enter the residence at 112 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder? Yes. Did you, on November 13, 22, in Latah County, state of Idaho, kill and murder Madison Mogan, a human being? Yes. And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately,

and with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes. Did you honor about that same date in Moscow, Idaho, kill and murder Kaylee Gonzalez, a human being? Yes. And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately and with premeditation and malice of forethought. Yes.

And did you on that same date in Moscow, Idaho, kill and murder, Xana Kurnodal, pardon me, a human being? Yes. And did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes. And then on, we're about November 13, 2022, again in Latow County, Idaho. did you kill and murder Ethan Chapin, a human being? Yes.

Did you do that willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought? Yes. I would ask the state at this time to provide its recitation of its factual basis had this case gone to trial. Thank you, Your Honor. Your Honor, the organization of the restitation is different than what I think the court in the public may be familiar with from the probable cause affidavit and other documents. The state's evidence as an overview would show that back in March of 2022, when the defendant was residing in his parents' residence or was residing back in Pennsylvania and his home state, he purchased online a K-bar knife and sheath with an Amazon gift card that he had purchased shortly prior to the purchase of the knife, sheaf and sharpener. Jumping ahead, the end of June of that year, the defendant, Mr. Koeberger, moved from Pennsylvania to Pullman, Washington, which is right across the state line from Moscow, Idaho, for the purpose of pursuing a Ph.D. and criminal justice at Washington State University. The state's evidence would indicate that beginning July 9th of 2022, Mr. Kovberger's phone began connecting to a cell tower that serves the era of the air of,

of the 1122 King Road residents in Moscow, Idaho. Now, I will acknowledge for the court in all present that there are many residences in that area. It's a dense population of mostly college-related occupants. Between July 9th of 2022 and in November 7th, the defendant's phone connected to that particular tower during late night, early morning hours, 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on approximately 23 times. Now, I will acknowledge also, we do not have evidence that the defendant had direct contact with 1122 or with residents of 1122, but we can put his phone in that area on those times. In the interim, on August 22nd of 2022, Laitaal County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Duke conducted a traffic stop in the early morning hour, or late evening hours, about 11 p.m. on the west side of Moscow on the Moscow-Polman Road.

This was the traffic stop of Mr. Coburger's car, which turned out to be a 2015 white Hyundai-A-Lantra with Pennsylvania plates. During the course of the traffic stop, Deputy Duke was able to obtain Mr. Coburger's name, Brian Coburger, his phone number and his address, which at that point was an apartment address in Pullman. We then move to the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022.

The state's evidence would show that early morning hours on that day, Mr. Kovirger's phone left his Pullman residence, which is an apartment in kind of the central northwest part of Poland. That phone was then subsequently turned off at approximately 254 a.m. and remained off until approximately 4.48 a.m. on Sunday, the 13th of November. On Sunday, the state's evidence includes, would include a trial, Viti surveillance of a business on the Moscow Pullman Highway, just across the state line from Moscow.

It would show a vehicle matching the description of the defendant's Hyundai-Launtra, entering Moscow at approximately 302 a.m. compiled surveillance that the investigators put together from businesses and residents, then show the defendant's car, the white allantra, as I've described, circling the 1122 King Road area, that neighborhood, starting around 3.30 or so in the morning. Starting around, comes into the immediate area of 1122 King Road, which is actually on a dead end, and then leaves several times. approximately 405.

That morning, the defense car had entered that area, was leaving, stopped at the intersection of King and Queen Road, did a U-turn, and the state's evidence would show that the defendant's car came back and parked behind and above the 1122 King Road residence. The state believes that its evidence would then show that the defendant entered

the residence of 1122 through the kitchen sliding door on the backside of the residence, which is the side of the residence that would face the area above where the defendant's car was parked. The defendant entered the residence, went to the third floor,

and with a knife, killed Madison Mogan and Katewick's office. The defendant, as he left that room for whatever reason, all right, there we go. So that was basically his plea. deal. And he said, hey, this is, I did commit these murders. They asked multiple times. The prosecution now is

going through what their most credible evidence that they have, given that if they would have went to trial, then this is what we could have proved. And it obviously sounds like this dude was definitely going to get proven guilty. I mean, and he sounds very confident when he's saying, yes, I did murder this person. Yes, I did do this. He knew the gig was up. He knew it was up. And the prosecution seems like they had at the very least enough evidence just from the cell phone towers and the cell phone pings and the video evidence of the car of the mantra the video evidence circling around over and over and it seems like you know he started at 302 and he doesn't really stop until 405 so for an hour he's either contemplating going in stopping am i going to do this am i not going to do this or he's seeing

activity in the house waiting for them to go to sleep so he circles the house for at least an hour and finally parks at 405. And I think it took him approximately 13 to 18 minutes to get in and get out and do his business. And when he left, he was going like a bat out of hell out of there and took all the back roads. They didn't get any surveillance on the back roads because he didn't take the main highways to get out. Yeah. And that's why they know he took the back roads. Yeah, it seems like he was obviously targeting Idaho this college, you know, from July. You know, so this was a, you know, if you want to talk about premeditation, I don't know. Well, actually, if you think about it, he bought the K bar in March before he even moved to Washington.

Yeah. So he bought it in March, moved to Washington in June. That's three months. And then from June to July is when he started stalking this house. Yeah. 23 times between July and November. Yeah. And there was some, I guess there was also some talk that maybe he had some interaction with one of the residents from time to time.

I guess they worked at this restaurant slash bar. Well, at that Greek bar or whatever, or the Greek restaurant, it's because it's a vegan restaurant and he does not eat meat. So it is presumed or presumed that he visited this restaurant on several occasions. But also, according to Dateline, they had a lot of evidence that they had come out somehow. And I think Judge Hippler is trying to still figure out how that information got bled through or whatever to let people know.

that he had many, many pictures of girls from Washington University and from the Idaho University in bikinis, sexy, prerocative. Provocative stuff, yeah. Yeah. Pictures. Yeah. But just by this timeline, we know from basically July to November, he was stalking them 23 times.

Yeah. I just wonder, though, when, like, the first case he found this particular. So what it was Madison maybe is who he was kind of zoned in on. Yeah. Because she worked at the Magreek restaurant. Yeah. So, and that's what I assume is that he likely. Yeah, he likely saw both of these people.

Maybe he had an interaction with at least one of them. Obviously, if there are waitress here, he may have interacted. He may have hit on them. He may have got rejected. There's a lot of various scenarios here of why he would have selected this particular house of these particular victims. But nonetheless, it seems like at the very least, he was planning something even back in March and probably before then, which is.

maybe why he moved all the way across the country and then also chose, you know, a college town very near where he was in Pullman, Washington, but he didn't obviously want to do it at his home campus. So he was like, hey, let me just go across the state lines. Let's do some stuff over here. Maybe it won't be known. But, you know, when you start looking in this cell phone tracking data and all this, they know where you're at at any given time. You know, if you have Apple Carplay, you have any of this stuff in your phone they can even track that data we saw that in the car and read trial where they were really tracking everything they can track you down by the second by temperature of your phones they can do various things to implicate you in a particular area at a particular time

and it just surprises me i guess that he would not have been smarter um in this particular mass murder that he committed especially given all of the knowledge and all of the education he has had that he would not leave his phone at home like he was there nothing nothing was off you know nothing was off instead no he turned his phone off he visited this place multiple multiple times around the area of 1122 king road and it was like all of the arrows were pointing to him and it was you know especially when you get the knife sheath and you have DNA evidence which matches your father it was like a home run for the prosecution it was going to be a very very easy case for them to prove, which still goes back to why would you not go forward with the death penalty.

Yeah. And that's what a lot of people are saying. Did he leave that intentionally or not? Because that was really dumb. And, you know, there was only one point of DNA, like, touch from his thumb on that snap. And that's it. That's the only DNA. Because he did scrub everything.

They found nothing in his apartment. They found nothing in his car. They basically said he mechanically took every part of his car up. part and cleaned it. He cleaned everything. Obviously, he was wearing, you know, the overalls or whatever. He had no blood trace evidence. He had no dog hairs in his apartment. They found nothing. Yeah. So he did do a great job of covering his tracks as far as you think about how gruesome that scene was and how bloody. You know, we see pictures of the house on the outside where Ethan was in the bed and there's blood dripping down on the outside of the building or the house.

Yeah, down in the foundation. I mean, could you imagine how gruesome that scene was and how bloody? And he did not have a one trace of blood evidence on him. Yeah. Nothing. The only thing they had was that sheath and it had his DNA mixed with Maddie and Kaley's blood on it. And that is basically how they traced him.

Yes. That one thing. Yeah. It's just still surprising to me. I mean, it's surprising to me that the prosecution just went with, you know, whatever. Now, here's kind of the opposite side of this. I mean, no matter how strong of a case you have when it comes to a death penalty trial or case,

you know, there may be some people on a jury that just no matter what, no matter what the evidence presented is, they do not agree with a death penalty. And if that happens, you can either have a mistrial or a.k.a. hung jury or you can go not guilty just because of the simple fact of a death penalty case. Because there are a lot of people that do not agree with a death penalty. Yeah. And that's why Judge Hibler said, we're going to have to interview probably. at least 10,000 jurors to have them fill these questionnaires out to see how they feel about the death penalty.

Because a lot of people don't agree with that. And that would be hard to convict somebody knowing you're actually taking somebody else's life based on them taking somebody's life. Yeah. You know, that you're the judge. So I would assume, yeah. So I would assume, I guess, that obviously this questionnaire is going to, they're only going to pick the people that are for the death penalty, I would assume. I would guess. I don't know exactly how that works.

But either way, that is I know at the very least why some prosecuting teams do not necessarily go with a death penalty case. They'll go with life in prison because even though it may be easy to prove, you still may not get people to go all the way there with a guilty verdict on a death penalty case. And in some cases, this is because the jurors themselves feel like they are committing a murder because they are convicting based on, you know, whatever the evidence shows. and then leading someone to their death. And some people just don't like to do that. No matter what the questionnaire might ask or whatever the case is, when you get in that moment, you just don't know. And I want to discuss just for a moment when Judge Hippler was talking to Ann Taylor

and asking her questions if she provided the right kind of. She had enough time to look at the evidence and look at everything. She really paused on that because that was her whole holdup that there's so much evidence to go through and there was no time, even though they've had two years to go through this, but there are constantly new discoveries going on. And it was hard for her to keep up with it. And it was interesting that she did pause on that. But I also wanted to bring up, in my opinion, which is really weird.

And where is the line blurred? Because the whole time she was defending Brian Colberger, she was coming forth as this man is innocent. Brian Colberger is innocent. He is an innocent man, standing trial, knowing, was she knowing that she was lying the whole time? Yeah, I mean, that's what defense teams do. I mean, I guess you're just allowed to do that.

Just lie to just do whatever you want to do. Yeah, I mean, because if you had defense teams that, you know, especially with such a high profile case like this, I mean, you would not even be able to find a defense team that didn't know whether you were innocent or guilty, or at least especially with attorneys that have all the evidence the prosecution has, they're going to look at that and say, oh, you're definitely guilty. And I'm sure that kind of played also into the conversations that Ann Taylor had with

Coburger and the defense team by saying, look, if this goes to trial, likelihood of you being found guilty is very high. Right. And even his alibis were just crazy. He was out stargazing or he runs in the middle of the night. And then they had four potential other murderers that come up. There were so many things. Which they denied to be allowed into evidence or even just the defense team potentially

giving four other possible murderers in that case. The defense or sorry, the court denied that and said, you're not going to be allowed to bring any of that in. And it makes a little bit of sense, especially if you don't have enough factual or backing evidence towards these random four people you selected. Because then when that goes to trial, if the defense team can argue that and present those names

or those people into court as a defense, then you're going to have the entire country start to look at those people. And then their life is no longer going to be safe. because of this alternate theory. Right. And listen, in courts, and especially when it's on the internet and it's in mainstream media, there's a lot of people no matter what, there's going to be half the people that, for some reason, they're going to go along with Brian Coburger's innocent.

And so if this defense presents a case for other people, they're going to automatically start just completely destroying their lives. Well, and just think about all the jacks. And I can't remember the other ones, but they're the Js, but all the jacks that were being accused during this whole thing, the boyfriends, the food truck guys, like all these people were being accused. The neighbor that lived across the street was accused. Yeah, the guy that was by the food truck. I think his name was Jack. Yeah.

That was kind of watching them that night. And, you know, a lot of people speculated about that. We had talked about her. And like, you know, it's weird. He kind of looks weird. Just kind of staring at him. Yeah, staring at him. And she and Maddie even flipped somebody off and said, F you to somebody at the food truck.

There were so many possibilities and, you know, so many people got reigned. on the internet by these, the internet sleuths that are trying to solve the case, which, you know, I think it's a good thing on most cases that you have these people, because I think, in my opinion, some of these groups probably helped the FBI, helped the departments out, gave them evidence that they had been researching. You know, there's a lot of people that are on disability. They're at home. They don't work all day.

So they have time to just research all this. Yeah. And I was on. all the Facebook groups, all of them, including Papa Rogers group. And I do, I think this podcast probably is going to go over. So we're going to have to do another podcast solely on Papa Roger. Yeah. And Papa Rogers is potentially an online profile that Brian Coburger may have actually created.

Most people believe it was his profile. He knew a lot about the actual murder. He knew a lot about a lot of stuff that no one else knew. And this account was called Papa Rogers. And he even made his own Facebook group that I would. was a part of. I was the OG of his group. Yeah. If it was Brian Coburor. And it could have been. And honestly, likely the evidence would have shown that. I'm sure they would have found that account and been able to find it. Don't you think that would have came out during the trial as well?

Likely, probably. I mean, but here's the other thing. The defense, I guess, has made a motion now that they want to seal the evidence, whatever evidence, all the stuff that's kind of out there or that the prosecution and defense has, as he just said, just so you know, you know, the, you know, the, your defense team has asked for the evidence that is in or has been put into evidence in this case to be sealed. And he says, do you understand that, blah, blah, blah. But from what it sounds like, from what I've read kind of online and all that, it sounds like maybe that evidence will not be sealed.

It actually may get out at some point in time to where. And I think that's what the families deserve. They need, they deserve the truth. And I think just pleading guilty and saying, yes, I did that, it's not proving it beyond a reasonable doubt. And I think that families wanted that and needed that at least half of them. For sure. They wanted it to be proven in court and they wanted to see him squirm a little bit and to have his name up during this, you know, nine-week trial or whatever it was going to be. Yeah. And by the way, we got an interview with, I want to go ahead and play the interview with Steve

Gonzávez on News Nation. This was his reaction initially to the plea deal. We'll go ahead and start. This is, I believe this is Banfield. He is the father of Kaylee Gonzalez. His attorney is Shannon Gray who has stood by him steadfast from the beginning. Steve, you know, I don't know what to say. You're the first person I thought of when I heard this news today. I reached out to you right away. First to tell you how sorry I was, because I know how this is landing. At least I think I do.

But I wanted you to have your say. I wanted you to be able to say out loud for everyone to hear what this means to you and your family. This is anything but justice. This is the opposite of our will. There was no majority believing that this was acceptable. I want to honor all the police officers, the FBI, and all the people that work their tail off.

The failure is at the court level, 100%. But the men and the boots on the ground and the women that were out there working, I want to honor everything that they did for our children, 100%. the fault is in leadership and the people that you place this evidence upon they they were weak they decided to play God and decide what this man's decision should be and not a jury not a peers not his peers they you know so that's where we are today walk me through what happened and, you know, did some really great reporting at the top of this show here.

But tell me from your perspective how the last three days have played out. I would say ever since Hippler has demanded an independent investigation, they couldn't get away from this case fast enough. They've done everything to make this case go away. So I don't know what that entails, but he said he was going to have an independent investigator. And all of a sudden we seemed like we were on rails to get rid of this case and make a plea deal. I mean, he's guilty. We all know he's guilty. There's more than enough evidence.

But it's tough. It's tough to put a community through this. And it could be bad for reputations and business identities and there's fallout. But this isn't the will of the victims. This is just one person making a decision, and it doesn't reflect what we were asking for. Steve, did anybody ever call you from the prosecutor's office to just personally discuss this with you? Did anybody offer to meet with you in person to go over this potential plan? We have meetings all the time on particularly a lot of times on Friday.

no, no, no. They, we had this regular meeting that we have to try basically do an update of what's going on, where things are at. Because Idaho is actually an amazing state where it really does care about people. We just get one or two, you know, people who just don't care about the victims and don't care about justice. And they, it's easy to take the weight out. It's easy to make an excuse and say, I'm doing this for the victims, even though I've never interviewed the victims. I've never really talked to them to find out what their true feelings are. So here we are.

We're stuck. We're stuck and we can't get out of it. I ask your audience, if anybody knows, Judge Hippler, reach out to him and ask him to put his foot down and not accept this offer. It doesn't reflect anything in Idaho. This is not justice. We had an outsider come to our community, kill our kids in their sleeves, while they're getting a college education, doing everything that they should do, and we don't have the courage to hold him accountable.

No plea deal. Let's go for this guy. 100%. Let's do it. And that's how this family stand. Yeah. And so obviously, you hear Steve Gonzalez saying very clearly, we did not agree with this. We think that we got screwed on this.

He even goes as far as to say this almost feels like the prosecuting team didn't give a shit about us being victims, our kids didn't care. They just wanted this trial to go away as fast as possible, especially after this leaked information that went to from Dateline. From Dateline. This is maybe when some of this stuff started going. Like, was this information leaked on purpose? Yes. To get this plea deal going.

We were talking the other night, Chad. And I was like, what if the defense leaked it to get it out there to make it seem like, oh, look at all this. He's never going to have a fair trial. We got to keep postponing in, postponing and all these new books are coming out. in these movies and all these things is never going to go away. Yeah. Well, and also, you know, there is this, there is this idea. And I want to talk about this before we get more into the interview and this is not a very long interview at all.

But did Coburger take the plea deal to save and protect his parents? Okay. So that's, that's number one. Because had he went forward with trial, the likelihood of his parents being called up as witnesses or to testify is very, very high. Now, the reason that matters, you may ask yourself, why does that matter? Well, at 6 a.m., that same morning, two or three hours after he committed these murders, he calls his parents. His dad.

At 6 in the morning, has a 42-minute conversation at 6 o'clock in a morning. And then it wasn't just, what, a day or two later. I guess he's on his way back across the country. His dad comes all the way out to get him. But it was a planned trip. Yeah, supposedly, to help him drive and all this stuff. But what was he talking about at 6 o'clock in a morning for 42 minutes to his parents? Did his parents know a lot more?

Did his parents come out there to help him figure this out? Because maybe he admitted this. Maybe he, you know, maybe he said, look, I did this. I did something bad. I did something very bad. Because I cannot get on my internet. I can't Google things. I can't look this up because it'll look suspicious.

Yeah. Dad, this is what I did. I mean, he could have implicated his parents. Yeah, absolutely. And so there's a lot of speculation. Did he somehow figure out how to get this plea deal going to protect his parents? Because like you said, you bring on his parents and then all of a sudden there's going to be things start to come out that could implicate his parents. And with a plea deal, does this completely now go away?

Are we ever going to find out who leaked the actual evidence to dateline? No, that's still under investigation. Supposedly, but will we ever find out about it? Will there ever be anything investigated on the parent's side? Or has there already been? Supposedly there has. but we just don't 100% know. And will appeals come up, even though they say there is no appeals?

But what if new information came out? I'm just saying hypothetically. Yeah. Hypothetically. Let's say new evidence came out that it was somebody else or something. Would there not be an ability to appeal it then? I think, well, I don't think it would be an appeal. But we have hard evidence that this was someone else.

Here's the evidence for this. But we've seen this in many cases for years. and even where there is very hard evidence. There's been many Netflix series about this to where it's like, oh, this is obviously not the guy that did this. Right. When it's people that are actually innocent. Yes. But that's what I'm saying. When this new evidence stuff comes out, we've seen it on Netflix, it's still very hard to get a trial or a plea deal overturned.

They don't likely like to do that type of stuff. But the question is, is in how or is or was he protecting his parents with the plea deal? Did his parents know more? did his parents help him clean up or do this or try to figure out a way to get him out of this? We don't know for sure. We're not necessarily, we're not accusing them. It's just there are people that are asking that question. Well, I just wonder, did Brian Colberger wear surgical gloves every time he visited at his parents' house?

No. Did he put his trash into little baggies and put him into the neighbor's garbage? Did he do these type of things before he committed them over? Obviously not. I mean. Because they did bring in the autistic OCD type stuff. stuff the defense did, was he like that prior to the murders? Yeah.

But also, we have to remember, too, I remember when we were reporting on this a couple years ago when the murders happened. And do you remember that there were dogs that were showing up? Yes. There was a couple of animals. Yeah, there were a couple of animals that were showing up in people's yards. They would let their dog out just like to do every single night. And one night in particular, this family let their dog out and could not find him.

Come to find out, I think it was like the next day. they find their dog skinned and decapitated, put in various pieces, and put on their lawn. And so this was just two or three miles away from, I believe, the Idaho murders. And this was not the only case. This was leading up to, and this was, I guess it was probably for about a year that this was happening. But there was also other murder cases in this area that happened that no one has ever been charged with yet. So, you know, the Coburger thing is, is this the first time that Coburger killed someone.

Is this the first time that he murdered someone? Obviously, the FBI and all the federal agencies and everybody involved, I would think would be looking at other murder cases in this area and trying to see if, hey, was Coburger at these locations during this time? Do they have the capabilities of doing that? In most cases, they do. But there was just a lot of weird stuff that we talked about when these murders happened. That was just very, very strange, almost like cult type stuff going on around in near Moscow,

Idaho. And when you think about, and I don't know if many of you know about the Todd Kolop case here in South Carolina, where he had Kayla Brown hidden in a storage container for months and was using her as a sex slave and had killed multiple people prior to her. Including her boyfriend. Yes. And Charlie. But is it the same thing? Because he did claim that he killed many other people in different states. Could Brian Kohlberger have killed before? Yeah. It's very possible. And the question is will they ever know? And, you know, obviously nowadays, it's like, it's, it's easier to figure that out with people if you can trace their data long enough back. And Brian's not obviously very old.

So, you know, they would not have had to trace this back very far. So, you know, are they at some point in time going to charge him with other murders? Is this going to be the case when he gets into prison that he starts admitting other stuff or at least taking blame for other murders? We don't know. But will he take any kind of blame in case there is a way for him to walk? Well, there's not a way he can appeal this. There's not. I mean, they've already said this. You cannot appeal this, period.

The only way that Brian Koberger ever walks is new evidence is presented some way that it was someone else and his hard evidence. But even then. If he thinks that, would he come forward and tell the truth? Is he going to come out and say, this is what I did, how I did it, and this is why I did it? Well, I can just tell you this. and I hate to even bring this stuff up, but we do know a serial killer. And I'm not going to say how, but we know, we know one. That's on death row right now.

Right. And he still doesn't tell us. No, he does not tell us. Like when we've talked to him on the phone at times, you know, we'll ask certain questions or just kind of go into the waves on this, you know, and try to wade out there a little bit and just see how he reacts and says things. And he still just even though he knows. And he has no appeals left either. Yeah, even though he knows he's guilty. we kind of know he's guilty. He's still not going to say it.

He's definitely not going to say on the phone. He has no appeals left. There's no other chance of him ever getting out of prison. Whether or not he'll ever be executed or not is another question because it is in North Carolina and North Carolina their death penalty thing. They're not really doing executions right now. But even still, for a lot of those people, some of those people want to disassociate with that happening in their past.

And so they still want to kind of hold on to this like innocent claim because, they feel like, hey, their time's drawn near, they're getting older, at some point they're going to die and maybe be executed. And so the further I can kind of separate myself away from what I did back in the day, the more I feel like for myself that I can live with myself every day. And so that's why a lot of these people don't want to talk about stuff like this. And then there are others. You see him on, you see him on these shows. And Ted Bundy was his hero. And I think that Brian Colberger wants some kind of notoriety. Definitely. And I think that he is proud of what he did or maybe he's not even proud because he shows no emotion and anything he does

has no emotion and i i don't think it's an act i do think because even in his profiles when he was younger he would talk about on the internet how he had no emotions he didn't feel normal like other people he had even the snow eyes that they talk about well he looks very evil i mean if you look in his eyes he looks like he has those evil eyes you know and it's like one of those things you ask yourself is like, was he just in a weird and crazy mindset that night? Was he on drugs? Was he heavily sedated on alcohol? Were any of these things present at the time of the murders?

And the most likely answer to that is no. Yeah, but he used to be on cocaine. Not really. Well, even still, though, I mean, even if you're on cocaine, I mean, I've never done cocaine. But I'm just saying, cocaine would not necessarily be something that would make you go and murder for people. You know, it may be something that's going to make you stay up all night and do all this crazy, you know, partying.

But I don't necessarily know. that that leads you to murdering people. What I'm trying to say, though, is that it seems like for a Coburger's case, it was something that was just in his mind that he just could not resist. Right. And he eventually had to do this. And whether or not this was the first event of murders that he had ever committed, that's a good question.

And maybe in the future we'll find out. You know, it's also going to be interesting to see when his sentencing comes up, July the 23rd. Is that what it is? I think it's July of 23rd. That 23rd. Yeah. So the citizen comes up July 23rd.

Will Coburger say anything in his defense or at least an apology or any of that stuff? How is he going to say if he says anything at all in that case? I don't know. I don't think he'll say anything. And he may not. Obviously, we're going to have victim statements during that time. We will obviously cover all those. But I want to get back to the rest of this interview for Steve Gunsavis and his attorney.

Steve, I know that, you know, it's no secret. Your daughter, Kaylee, was so close with Maddie Mogan. best of friends. And I know that you got to know the, the Mogan family as well. Have you spoken with the Mogan family and do you know what their reaction is to this plea decision?

We actually just had a meeting with the prosecution and just tore into it and made it clear that we were not in support of this. But we also invited other families into that. and I'll let them speak on their own that were a part of that meeting, but we are in no way alone on this. Multiple families believe the same as we do, but I want to honor their abilities to speak independently and as their child. So I don't want to cross that line, but all I will say is there was no majority for this decision at all. and if they're not working for us, they're working against us, guys.

I mean, we have to wake up to this. I mean, we have to hold people accountable. Cortelaine just had a shooting where we attacked our firemen. People need to stand up to these monsters and stop freaking bowing down to them and giving them child care. I mean, prison is nothing but adult child care. You get free vision, you get free dental. You get free mails. You get AC, room and board, cable TV, internet access.

It's ridiculous what we give our prisoners. Better than what we treat our vets. Our vets coming back from war with missing limbs. This is unacceptable. Shannon Gray, I'm going to ask you to step in as well. Judge Hipler, you know, Steve just mentioned Judge Hippler in this case. I have to ask you as a matter of law. Would Judge Hippler have been fully integrated

into this deal plan, meaning this is not a surprise to Judge Hippler. Is he going to have to weigh this and then rule from the bench as to whether he'll accept it or not? Or is it a fate accompli by the time they get this far down the road that the judge will accept it? Well, I think a few weeks ago, Judge Hippler talked about had there been an offer at all on this case. I think he mentioned it in the courtroom. And maybe that sparked something with the defense and the prosecution. I'm not sure. That being said, you know, with a plea like this, you know, it's with the life sentences and it's agreed upon by the state and the defense.

You know, there's small modifications sometimes that they can make to the sentencing regarding, you know, restitution, some other things like that. But if the state presents sufficient facts to the judge or a plea of guilty to the counts, normally judges will accept that. And they'll let the defense know if they're not going to accept that. And there you go. So and that was the interview with Steve Gonzalez and his attorney. Obviously the judge accepted it. We have a, we have a, I guess a citizen hearing July the 23rd, I believe it is, which we're going to for sure cover. So let's, I guess to close this, let's talk a little bit about Coburgers are going to be going to prison.

And we had actually watched this YouTube video about an ex-con. He's a great personality on YouTube, especially coming from prison. He'd been in prison. I think for 10 years. 10 years, yeah. And so he had just kind of discussed and talked about like what will Coburger be like in face in prison? Will he be someone that they automatically kill or will he go on one side or the other? And it seems like from a lot of people's opinions, Coburger is going to be useful to people in prison instead of useless.

Now, and that was one of the things he said. In prison, you're either useful to someone or you're useless. And when you're useless, you don't want to be that, especially in a prison. where everybody has gangs. You know, you got the whites, the blacks, the Hispanics, the, all these other factions. And Coburger is going to be useful to someone. But it's also like you said, you know, would you want Coburger as your cellmate? And then you go to sleep with this dude and maybe he has a shank, which, you know, we know that he knows how to stab people.

You know, are you going to trust someone like this? Or are they going to, is a faction of a gang, maybe the white supremacist or the Aryan brotherhood or whoever, are they going to recruit him, kind of train him up and make him a murderer, make him someone that's very dangerous in prison? And that seems to be likely the more, the best case scenario. I don't think he's just going to be murdered or killed in prison. I think that some faction of people are going to protect him. They're going to kind of build him up in prison. Because they know he's dangerous. Yeah. And just like the guy was saying, like basically your cell is your home and your cell unit is your community. And do you feel safe

in your cell and do you feel safe in your community? And what does this person have to offer me? Well, Brian Colburn right now is a cold-blooded murderer and he has no remorse. He has no, I mean, he's obviously killed four victims and shows no remorse, shows no response and could easily do that again in prison. Easily. And then another benefit, I think that he could be for other convicts is help. helping them with their court cases.

Yeah. I mean, he was going for his doctorate. Yeah, in criminology. Yeah. He's a pretty smart guy. He's definitely autistic. I give him that. I think he's a smart guy.

I just think that he is a sociopath. I think that he was probably born this way. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things Koeberger is, which we don't 100% know, but he's got a lot of issues, obviously. And I do believe once he gets a prison, I don't think he's just going to be murdered. I think someone's going to find him very useful. for their own benefit.

Eventually, that actually may lead him into solitary confinement. That was one of the things that everybody was questioned. Like, will such a high profile killer be solitarily confined because it is high profile? No, not necessarily. He's going to be put in general population. At some point, not right away. Yeah. But also, like, until he commits a kind of high profile crime in prison, which will likely happen

at some point in time, then maybe you see him. go into solitary confinement and waste away. But until then, he's going to be very useful to someone. They're going to keep him around. They're going to protect him. And likely they're going to maybe get him to do some of their dirty work because they know that he is a ruthless killer. And he is.

I mean, for someone that can go into a house and kill four innocent college students in the middle of the night, and that's the four murders that we know about anyway, there's going to be people that think he's a hero in prison. And, you know, it's not necessarily the same case, although these victims were very young. You know, it's not the same case as him being a child molester or a or a pedophile to where they're going to go after him and kill him, although there might be definitely some people in prison that still want to kill him based on what he did and the heinous, the heinous act of killing four innocent college students. There's going to be people to hate him for that as well,

but I think the bigger thing is going to be, he's likely going to be protected by a bigger group of people and they're going to get him maybe to do their dirty work as long as they utilize, as long as he gives them some benefit on his side. So like you said, PhD, he knows a lot about criminal trial cases, all that stuff. Although, you know, obviously he must have because he avoided a death penalty in this case. And if anybody deserves the death penalty, it is him for what he did on November 13th of 2022. It makes me sick. We could talk about this forever.

We're not going to likely talk about this again until the sentencing comes up July 23rd. Well, I do want to do a podcast about Papa Roger. I think we could do a whole hour about that. For sure. And maybe we'll cover the Papa Rogers thing. But we do have a lot of stuff coming up this week. Like I said, we've been on vacation for seven or eight days. Do you want to talk about the Texas floods.

There's a lot to talk about with that. We still got to get to our Alien Orb episode for those that want to hear all about. We're actually going to have a guest on. We're going to talk about some of Sherry's experiences. There's a lot going on. And I think we also have Elon Musk talking about a third party that he wants to try to run. may talk about that very soon as well. So guys, just stay tuned.

We are glad to be back. I know this is a kind of depressing topic that we came back to. But we do just want to say that we 100% are praying for the families of all the victims in this case. We can't imagine how you guys are feeling. And like I said, imagine losing your your child to a brutal killer like this. I know what you would do, Chad. Yeah. But I mean, imagine that.

And then the prosecution. basically saying, sorry, we're going to play the judge jury and God. And we're going to say that he don't deserve death and he deserves life in prison. It's where he basically goes to a hotel room, you know, for the rest of his life. Yeah, with a three-inch mattress. Yeah, but the reality is that Steve Gunsavis makes a great point. Like, we take better care of our prisoners than we do our veterans. Yeah.

And there's no question about that. But guys, we're going to close it with that. We're going to end it with Shivers, uh, image of you by Love and Calibur. Until next time, we love you guys. Talk to you soon. Peace out. I'd fall asleep in the times of my friends said beside you.

I see that phase and it shivers fall asleep is I don't know if I'll call.