Law&Crime Sidebar - Bryan Kohberger: Strength of 'Stargazing' Alibi in Idaho Student Murders

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

The defense team for accused quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger filed official paperwork with the court declaring his alibi for the night four University of Idaho students were brutally stabb...ed to death in 2022. Kohberger claims he was out driving on the night of November 13 to look at the moon and stars. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber debates the strength of this alibi with criminal defense attorney Andrea Burkhart.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser, find out if you have a claim in a few clicks by visiting https://incognitoclaims.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that
Starting point is 00:00:35 will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Our team constantly meets. We constantly work. We are on this. This is our priority. Brian's our priority. One of the things in the state's motion for scheduling order had to do with the alibi defense. The state asserts in its scheduling order that our time has expired, and that just can't be. Suspected quadruple killer, Brian Kohlberger,
Starting point is 00:01:12 has presented an official alibi defense on where he says he was on the night of the Brutal University of Idaho killings. We're going to break it down with criminal defense attorney, Andrea Burkart. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.
Starting point is 00:01:29 Hey, everybody. This is a law and crime legal alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge. And Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping users file for compensation due to Google misleading the privacy of their Incognito browser. So if you've used Google Incognito any time since 2016, you can start your claim in less than 10 questions at incognito claims.com slash sidebar. How could we not talk about this major update in the Brian Coburger case, a case that we have been following from the very beginning. I say this because now we have an alibi from the suspected murderer, where his defense team says where he really was on the night of November 13, 2022.
Starting point is 00:02:16 That, of course, is when four University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, Madison Mogan, Kaley Gonzalez, Zanernerner, Nodal, Ethan Chapin, all killed. Coburger, a former Washington State University grad student, was arrested six weeks after the killings. Police tied him to the murders through cell phone data, which will talk about surveillance footage, and of course, DNA. Prosecutors saying that the DNA on a knife sheaf left behind at the crime scene is a statistical match to Brian Coburger. We have dedicated several episodes of Sidebar before going into this evidence and even having debates about it, but now we have something new to discuss, the alibi. So last week, Brian Coburger's defense team was given a
Starting point is 00:03:02 deadline to submit an alibi defense. This is a requirement under Idaho law, and they submitted their filing just in time. And we're going to go through it real quick, and then we're going to talk about it. So this is what it says. Quote, Mr. Coburger moved to Pullman, Washington in June of 2022. As an avid runner and hiker, he explored many areas of the Palouse. Of note, he explored Wawa Way Park in July of 2022, and this became a favorite location. After the school year began, Mr. Koberger was busy with classes and work at Washington State University, and his running and hiking decreased, but did not stop. Instead, his nighttime drives increased.
Starting point is 00:03:39 This is supported by data from Mr. Koberger's phone, showing him in the countryside late at night and or in the early morning on several occasions. The phone data includes numerous photographs taken on several different late. evenings and early mornings, including in November, depicting the night sky. Mr. Coburger was out driving in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2020, as he often did to hike and run and or see the moon and stars. He drove throughout the area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho, including Wawa Way Park. Mr. Coburger intends to offer testimony of Cy Ray, CSLI expert, cell tower,
Starting point is 00:04:19 a cell phone and other radio frequency. Curricly Vitalis attached to show that Brian Coburger's mobile device was south of Pullman Washington and west of Moscow, Idaho on November 13th, 2022, that Brian Coburger's mobile device did not travel east on the Moscow Pullman Highway in the early morning hours of November 13th, and thus could not be the vehicle captured on video along the Moscow Pullman Highway near Floyd's Cannabis shop. Okay. Now, let me just quickly put into context why all of that is important.
Starting point is 00:04:49 Because in the probable cause affidavit from law enforcement, it states, on the night of the murders at 2.42 a.m., they say Coburger's phone was connecting to a tower that covers his apartment in Pullman, Washington. Five minutes later, the data shows he leaves the residence and travels south through Pullman, Washington. Now, this is consistent with the movement of the white Hyundai Allantra that was caught in surveillance tapes, the car they say he was driving. Then the phone stops responding to the network. Prosecutors say he shut off the phone purposely to avoid. detection. Doesn't come back onto the network until 4.48 a.m. two hours later, after when prosecutors say the killings happened, and then it hits the towers covering the area to a highway south of Moscow. Then between 450 a.m. and 5.25 a.m. The phone hits a tower showing the phone
Starting point is 00:05:36 is traveling towards Uniontown, Idaho, back to Pullman, Washington, 5.30 a.m. hits the area providing coverage for his residence, and that is consistent with the phone, is back at the residence consistent with the movement of the Hyundai-A-Lontra. So we have these two competing narratives. Let's talk about it. I'm joined right now by Andrea Burkhart, criminal defense attorney. You can check out her YouTube page at A. Burkhart Law.
Starting point is 00:06:00 Her Twitter X profile is the same handle. Andrea, thanks so much for coming back here on Sidebar. Always a pleasure, Jesse. Great to see you. What do we make of the alibi? Well, I think that there are some juicy little nuggets that we have in this particular alibi. What they are essentially giving notice of is that they believe they're going to be able
Starting point is 00:06:19 to present evidence, digital forensic evidence from Brian Koberger's cell phone that is going to enable them to separate the movements of the cell phone from the movements of the white car that police were attempting to trace the movements of through these various pieces of surveillance video. And so the probable cause affidavit
Starting point is 00:06:39 had originally identified this white car, this unidentified white vehicle as moving towards the direction of SR 270, which is the Moscow Pullman Highway, at about 2.47 in the morning. And it does not specifically say in the PC affidavit, it doesn't reference the video that this alibi notice is referencing about Floyd's cannabis shop.
Starting point is 00:07:03 So we can infer from that. The police have followed up. They've continued to collect surveillance video. They were able to locate this one by Floyd's cannabis shop, which they believe is the same white elantra. But the problem is, is that that is significantly closer to the Idaho border. It's more like directly east of Pullman, rather than the southwesternly direction that they claim they're going to be able to show his vehicle was moving in the other direction. I am made of questions, and I will start with the cell phone evidence, and then we'll get into this idea of where he could have been.
Starting point is 00:07:36 Because I think it was best explained by the Consolvis family. They released a statement to KHQ News, and they say that they feel, quote, even more confident in the prosecution after hearing it. about this alibi, because they say the alibi, quote, is in direct conflict with the probable cause affidavit that states the defendant's phone was turned off between 247 a.m. and 4.48m. They say, so if the defendant was driving around and their cell phone information that he was in a different place, it would either be before or after the times of the murders. And I have to tell you, I think that's a good point, because I couldn't tell from this alibi filing, is the defense saying that we're going to show you that he was in a different place while the phone was
Starting point is 00:08:21 operating? Or are we going to say that the phone was on when in law enforcement says it was off? So I think there are two responses to that. So the first thing I want to point out is that the probable cause affidavit very specifically does not say that his telephone was was turned off at the time. What it says is that his phone stopped connecting to cellular resources and that that's also consistent with the cell phone going out of range. I would note that this direction that Brian Koberger claims that he was taking. This is going out into the rolling hills of the Palluse out into a remote area that's near the Snake River. And so this is the type of area where it is quite common to have, you know, very thin coverage. This is, you know, thousand acre
Starting point is 00:09:03 wheat land farms and the hills can interfere with the service significantly. So his story in that respect, I believe, can certainly be consistent with his phone going out of range. But the second response that I think I would have to that is that there's another little hint here in the probable cause affidavit where they say there's likely to be more evidence here because there is a pending motion to compel. And what this suggests is that the defense has submitted the FBI's analysis and the data that they relied on to do all of the cellular location work. They have submitted that to their own expert. He's reviewed it. Based on that, very common the expert will want to follow up with either other pieces of raw data that haven't originally been produced or with
Starting point is 00:09:54 just other questions, things that perhaps aren't clear from the report. So there are a number of items, I believe it was about 12 or so, like a dozen or more items that are going to be the subject of this motion to compel coming up. Now, we don't know exactly what they are, but we do see this very strong language here in the notice of alibi that Mr. Ray is going to say that if this is not disclosed, it is because it is exculpatory and it either was not preserved or has been withheld. So this is a very strong statement from the defense that they have a lot of confidence based on their expert that this information they have been requesting and that has not been disclosed to them for quite a few months. The first request was from November of 2023 that
Starting point is 00:10:44 they've been waiting and they think that this is going to exonerate him. Real quick, if you can tell us, why would the prosecution allegedly not have turned that information over to the defense then? Well, I mean, you know, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Their suggestion is, well, maybe it wasn't preserved. Maybe it was deliberately suppressed. Those are certainly possibilities. Another option, however, can simply be that we have seen throughout the course of this case already. There is a little bit of difficulty with coordination between local law enforcement and the FBI. We had a previous hearing where disclosure of some of this FBI work was the subject of it. And the prosecutor was just basically saying, like, look,
Starting point is 00:11:29 we're trying here, you know, but they're not under our jurisdiction. So we have to go by their rules and the defense had indicated look if you give us a deadline that's probably going to help you know convince the FBI that they need to turn this stuff over so it could be something as simple as that that they're stuck in a bureaucratic process and uh just need some kind of definitive ruling from the court that they're entitled to it before it will be turned over i'll get back to that one second i want to go back to the idea of the cell phone though because because again assuming okay assuming that he was in an area where he didn't turn his phone off but it's getting bad reception why would
Starting point is 00:12:04 the government's analysis of the cell phone records signify, we can't tell you where he was. We can't track the location from that key time period when the killings happened. But their expert can say, no, I will tell you where he is. I mean, again, that's where I'm not clear. Is their expert going to say that I will be able to tell you where he was or where the phone was and what the phone was doing in that two-hour period? The government won't be able to. Or we're going to say, no, no, no, no, we just disagree with the government in terms of
Starting point is 00:12:34 what Towers his phone was actually connecting to before and after the killings, because I think that's an important distinction there. Well, I mean, from what we can see from the alibi evidence, they are focusing specifically so far. The only specific indication we have is that they're challenging that identification right before the killings, this 245 to 247 ballpark. So in terms of the cell site data, you know, we don't, of course, know, what they're. they have. We don't know what they're looking at. We don't know if there's specific data that the
Starting point is 00:13:07 FBI disregarded in doing their analysis. These are all possibilities. It could also be, quite frankly, there is other data, other location data that can be obtained from a cell phone, including stuff like GPS data, which is often more sensitive and doesn't necessarily require the same type of connection to the cell tower. I mean, it's connecting, you know, to a different a different system. It's connecting to a satellite system. So there is a possibility there that this is being implied through this alibi. Didn't you think it was interesting that they say, you know, one of the ways we could tell you
Starting point is 00:13:43 where he had been is he took photographs of stargazing, but they weren't specific that he took photos on November 13, 2022. They didn't say, oh, we have photos from that day, from that time period. So I think that was a little bit, as far as I'm reading, a little bit of a red herring in the sense, I think they'll be able to show photos of him, you know, in the early morning hours, maybe taking photos here and there, but not on the day in question. Did you get the same feeling? Well, yeah, my impression was that if they had photos from this particular outing,
Starting point is 00:14:15 they would have said so clearly and unequivocally. I mean, you just, you wouldn't hold that, hold that card. You would, you would play it. What I think that they're doing here, because this is not the first that we have heard this, you know, alibi, non-aliby, that he's out. driving around and wasn't able to specifically identify where he was. We've known this since since last summer, I believe. But, you know, my recollection when that kind of first became public is, you know,
Starting point is 00:14:42 there was a lot of skepticism in the response to that. Like who goes out driving at three in the morning, who runs, you know, late at night, that type of thing. And so I think what they're really doing here is addressing that skepticism. They're showing this is a pattern that he has. This is a habit that he has that we can demonstrate. So his behavior on this night. in question would not be out of character with his normal behavior that he engages in.
Starting point is 00:15:06 It's not an extraordinary claim given what they can show about his habits. The counterargument to that would be, isn't it freezing cold? Isn't the park closed at that time, you know, going to this park, driving around stargazing, you know, let's say he really did go for, I mean, the idea of just the alibi itself, because we speculated that it was going to be that he was driving around. but now they really put it in a filing. What do you make of that? To me, that doesn't seem extraordinary at all.
Starting point is 00:15:35 I mean, we have seen videos from the Grubhub truck, the night of the killings, where you can see how people are dressed. They're not wearing, you know, heavy winter parkas or anything like that. You know, some of them don't have overcoats at all. It doesn't look like it was really that cold. The other thing I would say, too, is, you know, Brian Coburger is a runner.
Starting point is 00:15:53 And I got to tell you, as somebody who has done my fair share of running, It is so much better to run here in November than it is in, say, July, because, you know, when it's, it's not that cold, you know, you run. You're active. Your body gets up to temperature. It's actually can be quite comfortable. As compared to, you know, middle of July, it will be 90 plus degrees. And, you know, you have to combat heat stroke to do that type of exercise. So for him to be outrunning in the cold, to me, is not really remarkable at all. Why did the defense seemingly wait till the 11th hour to file this alibi defense? Well, I suspect that they were simply trying to make sure that they had all of the most current information available to them at the time that they have to give this notice. If, for example, a week before they had filed their alibi notice and then subsequently the FBI had produced some of this information that's subject to the motion to compel and that changed their analysis or that provided additional information, because this notice is, at least in theory, this is limiting
Starting point is 00:16:56 what they're going to be able to present at trial. The whole idea of this notice is that the defense isn't allowed to sandbag the state any more than the state is allowed to sandbag the defendant. You have to give notice of these things so you aren't just fabricating, you know, a witness at the 11th hour that the state's never been able to interview or something like that that says they can put you somewhere else. So it's to give the state of a fair opportunity to be able to investigate the validity of your claim that you were somewhere else.
Starting point is 00:17:23 So they need to include everything that they have at the. time of the filing in the filing. And that's why I think they would leave it to the last minute just to make sure that everything that they have at that point in time that they intend to rely on, they're able to put that in the notice. Before I move on to that, does the state under Idaho law respond to this alibi defense in a filing and try to negate it? Not to my knowledge, no. Okay. Okay. So let's focus a little bit more on this because I was also getting the sense that the alibi filing was also trying to explain what he did before November 13th. We talked about a little but like that he was out and about, but he wasn't doing anything bad because the probable cause affidavit revealed that Koberger's phone GPS, they pinged at or near that house on King Road, the crime scene at least 12 times before November 13th.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Now, police say that every one of those pings happen late at night or in the early morning. And by the way, the cell phone data was consistent with that movement of the Hyundai Alantra. However, it's interesting because prosecutors have come out recently and said, we are at a. arguing, we aren't making the argument that Brian Koberger was stalking the victims beforehand, but it seems like they were very specific in the defense's filing to say he was out all these times driving, not going near the house on purpose, right, but that he was to go out and about for different reasons. I just think that's so interesting in light of what the prosecution has said recently that they're at least, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, that they're not going to
Starting point is 00:18:51 argue that Brian Koberg was stalking the victims. I agree with. I agree with. that and I think that it's important to remember that this this stalking allegation it originated in the probable cause affidavit and like you pointed out it was a derivative from these pings that the the law enforcement was tracing between his phone to the tower that service the King Road residents and the inference that the probable cause affidavit asked you to draw is they were investigating the possibility that he stopped them and then they discovered they
Starting point is 00:19:24 discovered all of these pings I I think the issue that we have with this theory that the state has now walked back from is that a single ping to a cell phone tower really does not give you a whole lot of information because the range of the cell phone tower can be massive. It can be something like, you know, anywhere from 10 miles to like close to 50 miles away. It's not a precise measurement that shows you exactly where somebody is. There can be exceptions to that in areas where there is very dense cell tower cover. And in those situations, they can sometimes triangulate position off of multiple towers.
Starting point is 00:20:01 But that's not really the type of cell environment that we have in this extremely rural area out here. So the only real precision that you can get from single pings in this type of situation is you can show it moving out of the range of one tower into the range of another tower. And so over time, single pings can potentially show movement of a cell phone with, within these, you know, large range distances. And that's part of what the probable cause affidavit also discusses when they're talking about those later, later morning movements between near Blaine, Idaho, down to Genesee, and then back up towards Pullman. And so that's likely how they're doing that.
Starting point is 00:20:43 But as far as a single ping to the King Road Tower, it really doesn't give you very specific information. So that does suggest that the prosecutor without any kind of additional evidence that would corroborate a stalking theory like seeing them on social media like you know being able to place them in the same place at the same time they don't think that perhaps this is precise enough that they're going to be able to establish that this brian coburger case is just another example of very very tough subject matter that we cover here and i'm not going to lie to you it is not easy reporting on these stories hearing all of these details that's why it's always good to do a check
Starting point is 00:21:22 up on your mental health. It's so important. It shouldn't be ignored. And I want to talk to you right now about better help. Our great sponsor of this episode of Sidebar, therapy can be a place that you can work through the challenges you face in your life, all different kinds of challenges, including with respect to your relationships, whether with your friends, your work colleagues, your significant others, anybody. Therapy is super helpful for learning positive coping skills, how to set boundaries. It can empower you to be the best version of yourself. And it's not just for those who've experienced some major life trauma, it's so much more. But here is what's special and unique about BetterHelp.
Starting point is 00:21:57 So BetterHelp is entirely online. You don't have to run out for appointments anymore. No, it's designed to be convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire. You get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Well, right now, if you visit BetterHelp.com slash sidebar today, you get 10% off of your first month that's better help help.com slash sidebar if they don't provide some sort of connection some
Starting point is 00:22:29 sort of motive that's a problem for the prosecution i know they don't have to prove it but you know if the idea would have been so much strengthened this is somebody you know he was following them he was stalking them he was studying them he was waiting for the opportunity if there's no connection they can make between brian coburg and these victims that that is not a story that's easily sold uh to a jury and I think that's problematic for the prosecution. I do want to ask you about Cy Ray, though, because, again, it seems to me that this alibi defense is relying a lot on this potential expert called by the defense.
Starting point is 00:23:01 Now, my understanding is that Mr. Ray is a 20-year law enforcement veteran. He's worked over 1,000 death investigations. He's been an expert witness testified in over 100 cases, including a cell phone analysis. Having said that, NBC has reported that Mr. Ray, who founded this company called ZETX. He's come, his credibility has come into question. And there was one case in particular where he was called to testify.
Starting point is 00:23:26 And this district court judge, Juan Villa Senior, said that ZetX's tracks map mapping could not come into court. It was inadmissible. It said there was a sea of unreliability. The judge wrote, quote, for one, the court doesn't find Ray credible. He inflated his credentials, inaccurately claiming to be an engineer. The judge goes on to say that Ray has no qualifications, licenses, or credentials to support saying that he was an engineer. Now, maybe that was a specific issue, but I found it interesting that, you know, his credibility called into question, but he is very well known in the industry. He's appeared, I think, in documentaries and in different series.
Starting point is 00:24:06 What do we take or what do you know about Mr. Ray and him being a potential key witness for Brian Koberger? Well, I think you're right that his law enforcement background is, is really pretty significant here because this technology that he did develop, this, this tracks software system, this has been used by law enforcement all over the country. And yes, there's this case in Colorado where the trial court refused to admit it. There have been other cases, however, that have reached the opposite result. There's a federal decision, I believe, out of the Sixth Circuit, reviewing a Daubert hearing that was held on it in that case that upheld it as being a valid technique to use in court.
Starting point is 00:24:46 I did go and look through that opinion. I read that opinion that excluded his evidence. And I did find some of the criticism to be just honestly a little bit strange. Inflating credentials, I think, is that's legitimate. You know, you should not do that. You should be pretty precise about what your qualifications for something are. So that would certainly raise a concern if he were to repeat something like that in this case. But in terms of his actual technique, the criticism was basically that he had,
Starting point is 00:25:16 done a massive amount of observational work to collect data to look at what actual transmission from towers was. And what this is doing is it's reconciling the mathematical, you know, abstract ability to calculate what a theoretical range of coverage would be with what you actually see happening on the ground. Because in the real world, everybody knows there can be interference with radio signals that can be heat can affect it, temperature, gamma rays, just all kinds of different atmospheric conditions can affect the real world measurement. So he had done something like two and a half million measurements to get all of this observational data from which he was then able to derive this mathematical principle that showed him if you map the cell tower
Starting point is 00:26:04 coverage this way, that is going to be the most accurate way to actually depict it. The trial judge didn't like that at all. His criticism was, well, this isn't based on any type of scientific principle. It's you can't explain the mechanism for it. You know, there's no theoretical underpinning for it. And I find that quite strange for a couple of reasons. I mean, first off, the entire school of electromagnetics was accomplished this way. It was accomplished by Maxwell going out and obtaining a bunch of observational data and deriving mathematical constants from it. So it's a peculiar criticism of the scientific method in that sense. But it's also problematic to me because forensic techniques are routinely allowed into court that have significantly less
Starting point is 00:26:49 observational validata than Mr. Ray's method does. An example that I would use would be something like ballistics where the standard is simply whether the technician believes that there is sufficient agreement between the item that he's examining. and the, like, test piece or something like that. They never tell you what sufficient agreement is. There's never been an observational study that would give you that type of validation, give you error rates or things like that. So just given the sort of mess, the criticisms of a lot of forensic science in general,
Starting point is 00:27:28 to me, this particular opinion seems to be an outlier. Then again, Judge John Judge, who's overseeing the Coburger case, could agree and say, you know what, I don't believe, I don't think this should be allowed in. I don't think Cy Ray should be a qualified expert. But having said that, let's say he is called to the stand and he does testify. How is the jury supposed to sort this out? Is it just a battle of the experts and it becomes a question of credibility? We're going to weigh Cy Ray's credibility over the prosecutions experts on cell phone analysis because it seems to me you were having two sides looking at a series of data and saying two diametrically opposed things, which happens all the time
Starting point is 00:28:04 in trial. I mean, even, you know, use of force experts have different opinions about something about whether lethal force should have been used and DNA experts. There's always a battle of the experts. But is that what this case is ultimately going to come down to, a battle of the experts and who do you believe? Yeah, I mean, it very well could because this is such significant evidence. Obviously, if they can place him somewhere that is not the King Road residence at the time of the murders, that's pretty dispositive of his involvement in the case. So I think you're right that the battle of the experts can be can be quite common and in those situations it often comes down to not just because the jury the jury is certainly evaluating credibility but they're doing that not just based on you know your background and your qualifications and stuff like that
Starting point is 00:28:49 they're looking how well does your explanation comport with with the evidence that you're relying on like it's not just do i believe your conclusion because because of who you are that said it's what's what's the process the analytical process that you reach to get to that conclusion and so that's where I think if there are issues that the defense is suggesting here with, you know, withholding evidence, not relying on certain evidence, pretending some, some of the data doesn't exist, anything like that. Those are the types of factors that can have an enormous influence in determining which of the experts is going to be seen as more credible. I want to close this out by going back to the car because the defense is saying that our cell phone analysis will show that that car could not have been driven by Brian Coburger, that it was, that the prosecution is
Starting point is 00:29:34 wrong. I just want to be clear about what they're saying. And I want to be clear if they're saying, and I'm going to break it down real quick, that the car that was mentioned in the probable cause affidavit is not Brian Coburger's car or that the data, uh, regarding that car, assuming it is Brian Coburg is inaccurate. And I want to be clear because they say that there is this white Hyundai Alantra that was spotted on several cameras passing the King Road home four times between 3.29 a.m. and 404 a.m. on the night of the killings. Then it speeds away 16 minutes later. Then they have this car on tape leaving the Washington State University campus at 244 a.m. They capture it headed towards Moscow. 5.25 a.m. The cameras show it returning to
Starting point is 00:30:16 Washington State University. And by the way, later on in the afternoon, they track the phone to Albertson's grocery store and they see Brian Coburger exit that white Hyundai Alontra that it's on surveillance tape. So, and the... then not only that, after the killings, a Washington State University officer had spotted a white Hyundai Alontera in the parking lot of an apartment complex near the campus. And that car came back registered to Brian Coburger. So let's be clear. We're going to end this out. Is the defense saying that everything I just mentioned is not Brian Coburger's car, that it's somebody else who's matching all this description? Or is it that, yeah, that's his car, but he didn't do any of those things.
Starting point is 00:30:53 I think that the hint that this is not Brian Koberger's car has been latent in this case for quite some time because it's going to come down to how exactly was the FBI analyst who identified this vehicle and purported to be able to say it was this range of model years of Hyundai-A-Lontra. How was he able to reach that conclusion? We do know that that changed in the very early days before Brian Koberger was even arrested. It was originally a certain set of model years. It was then expanded to include some additional model years. We know that the defense has challenged that conclusion
Starting point is 00:31:31 because that has come up in previous motions of theirs as well. So my suspicion is that the defense is basically going to contend that you can't identify any particular, any specific vehicle from all of these different clips that they have been able to collect. I think when we get to trial, trial, it's extremely likely that we are going to see this video for ourselves. And so the jury is going to be able to look at it with their own eyes and see, okay, this is a surveillance video taken at
Starting point is 00:32:03 two some in the morning. The conditions are dark. You know, cameras are not necessarily good at picking up details in those types of conditions. Is this clear enough that we believe somebody can look at this and say, here is the type of car it is and in the range of model years? That's going to potentially requires some explanation from the FBI about how they reach that conclusion. If the jury giving it the eye test is going, well, I just see a blurry, indistinct kind of video here. So if you're going to tell the jury that you can see something there that they can't see with their own eyes, you're going to have to back that up pretty well for them to be able to buy it. That's where I think the defense is going with this. I think they're going to the challenge
Starting point is 00:32:46 that you don't know, you can't say for sure that it is this, it's just a guess, and potentially as well given the types of allegations they previously raised about this investigation being reverse engineered off of the investigative genetic genealogy testing, which initially pointed the finger at Brian Coburger, that this would be the type of thing that was, it's an instance of confirmation bias. They were able to fit his car within, you know, the range of possibilities of what this car could be and then just essentially overegged the pudding by making a definitive claim that that's in fact what it was. Andrew Burkart, you know what you mentioned? You said trial. We will see what happens at a trial when that trial ultimately happens because
Starting point is 00:33:35 that's a whole other bag of worms. I mean, when we're actually going to see this go to trial and if it actually goes to trial. But look, I thank you so much for coming on. You break down this case so well, probably arguably better than anybody I've ever heard. So really, thank you so much for coming on. You can check out Andrea on her YouTube page at A. Berkart Law or Twitter ex-hot profile is the same thing. Andrea, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Jesse, thanks so much for having me. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.