Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Cold Iciness’: Bryan Kohberger’s Body Language Before and After Arrest for Idaho Murders Analyzed

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Accused Idaho student murderer Bryan Kohberger was arrested six weeks after four University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death in their off-campus home in November 2022. Since then, Kohberger has appeared in court multiple times, and bodycam footage showing three separate traffic stops involving the accused killer surfaced. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber analyzes Kohberger’s body language before and after his arrest with expert Susan Constantine.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&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.

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. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that 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. We do a deep dive into the mannerisms, behavior, statements, and demeanor of Brian Coburger by analyzing key videos of the accused murderer. Body language expert Susan Constantine Perfito comes on. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Long Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Our coverage of the Brian Coburger story out of Moscow, Idaho continues.

And as we reported on our last sidebar, Coburger was officially arraigned on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary for the massacre that occurred on November 13th, 2020. He chose to stand silent, whereby he doesn't directly enter a not-guilty plea, but not guilty pleas are entered on his behalf by the court. Interesting tactic. We spoke with Johnny Depp's lawyer, Ben Chu, about that on our last sidebar as well. And as we cover the Coburger case, we still have so many questions.

But the main one, of course, is if he really murdered these four University of Idaho college students, Madison Mogan, Zana Kernodal, Ethan Chapin, Haley Gonzalez, as he is accused of doing, why? Why would he have done this? It's a major question. hasn't been fully articulated yet by prosecutors. And as we analyze the life and the actions and the backstory of this former PhD student from Washington State University, we're trying to understand who he is.

And I'll be honest with you, it's kind of hard to get a read on him. What's going on in his mind? What's he thinking? Well, we thought, let's try something different. We actually have some video of Brian Koberger during traffic stops, in court. What does his body language tell us? well no surprise i'm no expert in body language everybody knows that the good news is i have someone with me here today who is an expert joining me is susan constantine perfido the president of the human

behavior academy and the president of the human behavior lab susan is an expert in reading body language and is a trial consultant susan so good to have you here on sidebar thank you so much for inviting me of course so we have a lot of video to go through you're the perfect person to talk about it i'm going to start in chronological order so First up, I want to start with when Brian Koberger was stopped by police one month before the killings. So he gets pulled over for running a red light in Washington State. Let's take a look.

Hello, I am Officer Lewangis. Stop being audio and video recorded. I think I know why it stopped you. He ran the red light. What actually happened was I was stuck in the middle of the intersection. Yeah, I was forced to turn the whole time. Yeah. Yeah.

So technically you're not supposed to enter the intersection. at all for that reason, because if the light turns red, then you're stuck in the intersection, and then you're on the red light. So that's the reason I stopped you. Do you have your license on you? You just get this for you out. You what? I'm just going to get this out for you. Okay. So can you, would you,

explain that to me a little bit further? So in Pennsylvania, when you're stuck, like in their intersection, you have to make the left. So what would the appropriate thing for me to have done, done they're not supposed to block an intersection like that in Washington so just by you blocking the intersection that's technically a ticketable violation and then thus then you're running a red light so it's another ticketable offense so you're not supposed to proceed into the intersection until you can go because a lot of people do what you just did right is like you're sitting in the

intersection waiting and then turns and then you're blocking so yeah there was a little bit of confusion with speeding because someone had stopped I wasn't sure what they were doing and then they put on their light to turn so I thought that maybe they were letting me go through did you see that? No, mm-mm. Like right before I made the turn

there was someone who made a right and they didn't have their signal on so I wasn't sure if they were just waiting. Yeah, so I would just advise just don't enter the intersection until you can go so you don't get stuck. Let's see. But in that situation, the best thing

to do then would be backup and not I don't know if there's a best thing to do in that situation because you're either going to back up into somebody or you're going to run a red light yeah the best thing to do is probably not go through the intersection but here's the thing susan this is probably the clearest video we have of him and most up close again what do you think this is about one month before the killings yeah so there's nothing that's really overt that stands out to me here you know this is beforehand so there's not cognitive load he's not being watched or being pulled over because they think he's a suspect. So you don't see the typical glare stare that you see in later videos. He seems to be working with a police officer. The issue is

is that when I'm watching his eye movements and he's describing what had occurred like he was in the middle of the intersection and then he's also comparing it to his hometown. His eyes move side to side, you don't see him in visual recall or visual memory, which is upward, he tends to go side to side. And everything that I've seen with him, he tends to be very much of an internal processor. And then he begins to question the officer. He's not combative. But on the other hand, he's still trying to work his way out of it to have some sort of logic. So that tells me a lot about how he thinks and how he processes. He tends to be a very chronological analyzer and things. thinker. Big thing that I take away from this. A few things. One, the fact that he's asking these

questions and has this level of what I would say, maybe comfort with the officer. This is a PhD student in criminology. Part of me feels like he's interested in learning the law. He's interested in learning like, how is the police officer stopping him? This is my take. I'm not an expert. But what's the most alarming thing for me? This is a one month before killing, allegedly killing four people. And there's been evidence that he's been at that residence or in that neighborhood for time. It hasn't been entirely clear if he was following at least one of the victims or stalking or how pre-planned this was. But for somebody who a month later is going to murder four people, that's the allegation, how do you look at him? What should we be thinking about when we look at him

there? I mean, that's the thing that gets him. I'm trying to see if there's anything there that would get any indication. He's about to commit a quadruple homicide. Well, I have to share with you One thing that I did, and I'm going to kind of go off the grid a little bit here, because he had written a letter or what his whole project was going to be about, right? We know that he's a PhD PhD student, and he was trying to get people that would enter into this test or this analysis. Remember that? The Reddit survey. The Reddit survey, yeah.

Yeah, the Reddit survey. and also too that he was also writing there was a wasn't a manifesto but it was there very similar to it in that data was really a lot of wealth of information because one of the things that we can learn about language is when they use contempt anger disgust types of language it will tell us the percentage of the possibility of them carrying out a deadly act like a terrorist act a loan shooter act So I happen to have run all that stuff through DeCypher, which is a product that I have out of Sweden, which is used for counterterrorism. And I ran it through.

He came up at 95% assurity that he was going to commit a violent act. So with that being said, why didn't somebody, he was already kind of on the radar, why didn't they run this through or analyze his language? So his language in itself, it's told volumes. Now we're talking about demeanor, and that's what we're talking about today. But I want to let you know, language and words and body movements and facial expressions, all that kind of tie together and tells you a lot about the person. And the motive or intent. I think this is fascinating.

So let's move on to another traffic stop. Guys, like the worst driver of all time. He gets pulled over more than anybody we've ever seen. So now, this is from December 15th. This is after the killings. And we're going to play two videos. First, so he gets pulled over in Indiana while driving home to Pennsylvania. He's driving in the car with his father.

And he's pulled over the first time for following a car too closely. Let's take a listen to some of that. Hello. How you doing? How you all doing today? Good, good. Take a look at your driver's lines in real quick. Am I could?

So he's right up on that van, man. You were right up on the back end of that van. Pulled you over for tailgating. Is this your car? Okay. Cool. Where are you headed? Well, we're coming from WSU. And we're standing in early.

What's WSU? I go to university, basically. So we're going to be a real estate. It's very important. That is SWAT team and everything. So we're, okay, I'm having a hard time hearing you because of the traffic. So you're coming from Washington State University? Yeah.

And you're going where? Oh. We're going to be going to Pennsylvania. Oh, okay. We're a little, we're slightly much because we're driving for hours. Hours, days. Hours. Yeah.

Almost. Okay, and what did you say about some SWAT team thing or? Yeah, there was... There was... There was this... Where? It's... Interesting.

Well, it's horrifying. It's just always a universe. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So y'all work at these. University there? I actually do work there. Oh. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, I hadn't heard about that incident. Just yesterday or? This happened to the morning. About an hour and a half of all. It's still wrapping it up. I'm not sure there's two shoes because they did shoot somebody.

Let's see. And then if you don't know about that, actually, it's interesting. Wow. Okay. So do me a favor. Don't follow too close, okay? No.

All right. Okay. Now, later on, he gets pulled over again for doing the same thing. Let's take a look at that. I'm on a hard right to be back down now. Hey on. You've got your license and registration media. I was talking to me.

When you were driving by me there, you're a little bit closer back at semi. We're about one car in the back in this trailer. I'm running about one car to 30 miles an hour. So we're going to six or seven miles an hour. About six or seven miles a hour. Are you guys dead? Yeah. Yeah.

You're just dead. Yeah. You got, you guys talk about a trooper? We don't have any SUVs. It was a county guy. Was it like a black SUV? Yeah. Okay.

All right. Okay. Now, it's really hard to hear him in that one, and you don't really see him in that second video. But Susan, here's my take on this, right? If he did this, he's the killer. He could be thinking, wow, I'm about to get him. get arrested. I'm about to get arrested for murder. It's my take about his initial impression of

that, but what do you think? Well, when I'm looking at his body language throughout, I want you to pay attention to the lack of eye blinking and that very blank, empty stare or the glare. He has this glare about him. And when he is in that place, it's called fight or flight, right? So he's really hyper aware because when you think about if he had committed those crimes, these horrible crimes, he's on high alert. He's in that fight or flight response. So that's where his eyes are very frozen. His eye pupil dilation is larger. And this kind of gives you indication. Why is he feeling the sense of fear? The other thing is he has a very cold kind of iciness about him. He's looking over at his father for affirmation. He does his very quick little jarts. It's not like he's

turned towards the officer listening and then nodding his head and it would be a way of nonverbally saying, I understand you. I hear what you're saying and they're following him. He's not doing that. He's looking straight ahead. He's darting off. He's coming back. He's darting up with that very blanket stare. The other thing that I thought was really interesting is how he corrected his dad when he was talking about that there was a shooting there wasn't a shooting he says oh that we don't know that yet so it's interesting that he came in and he actually said that and again when you think about it he questions people so when we go back to the first video what did he do he questioned the logic or question what the what the officer was saying really what he's what really trying to do is to gather

intel for himself to knowing how to then go move forward with this next question. Do you get a sense of relief when the officers leave? Well, I don't there, he knows number one that he's being questioned, right? So I don't know if I would say a sense of relief like like where his shoulders are slumped down and he breeze out. That's kind of like, okay, got through that one. He didn't. He has, he's trying to keep very collected. So his, when he, when he is ready to go, he's ready to go. So I guess that would be the indicator that he was ready, that he was, the fear had dropped. Now he's ready to go again. But he's on high alert. So that's what I'm seeing here more than anything else. Because when I'm looking at his facial expressions, he has this very

intense expression. You can see it in his forehead. You see this. We call a bulge that comes across the forehead. It's when he is leaning, his head goes down, his forehead goes down, and then he raises his eyebrows. That's what we call a fear response. But he's borderline. paranoid. So when I'm analyzing someone, I'm analyzing the sphere responses and the psychopathy of it. So things that we know is that they have a very stared, glared expression. They have a very blank glare about them. This is what we call fixation. When a person is very fixated, you see these frozen responses. You also see eyes dilate. You will see these frozen, very rapid movements. You'll see fighter flight responses. All of that also, also

is tied into paranoia. And if you think about the guy who shot up all those people in a theater, the guy with a red hair and thought he was a joker, if you look at his expression, look at the two compared to one another. You'll see the eyes wide open and no affect in the face, bottom region. So when you look at the top region compared to the bottom region, nothing here changes, but you see the fixation. That's so interesting. Now that you're saying that I'm actually thinking about it. Look, I haven't thought about that guy in a long time, but now I'm remembering his mugshot, and that's eerily similar. Okay. So, Susan, I want to get into Coburger in court. So he's arrested six weeks after the killings. In January is his first court appearance. We see him

in the orange jumpsuit. It's the first time all of us really see a video of him. There were pictures of him when he's arrested. There might have been video of him being walked into or wearing the jumpsuit vest. But this is really the first time we see him in court. Let's watch some of this at his first court appearance. Mr. Coburger, I am going to advise you of the rights that you have in this case. I am going to go over the criminal complaint with you and then we're going to discuss steady the matter for further hearing. You have the following rights.

You have the right to remain silent. anything you say can and will be used to give to you. You have the right to the presumption of innocence. That means the state bears the burden to prove that you are guilty of this offense beyond a reasonable doubt. You have the right to a preliminary hearing. A preliminary hearing is a probable cause hearing. At that hearing, the state must establish that more likely than not, these felony offenses were committed, and you were the one that committed the felony offenses.

You have a right to have that hearing within 1440s. hearing within 14 days if you remain in custody. If you are bound over at that preliminary hearing to district court, if the court finds probable cause, we would be bound over to district court. And at that time, you can enter a plea of not guilty, and you can have a jury trial set within six months of your appearance in district court. At both your preliminary hearing and your jury trial, you have the right to confront and question any evidence or witnesses called against you. witnesses on your own behalf and compel witnesses to be present and testify at the state's expense you have the right to be represented by a lawyer if you cannot

afford one one could be appointed to represent you based upon your financial need you also have the right to appeal any eviction in your case do you understand these rights yes I am now going to go over the criminal complaint with you the led is that the defendant Brian C. C. C. murder honor about November 13th of 2022 in Laytok County City of Idaho did willfully unlawfully deliberately with premeditation and with mal-support thought kill and murder Kaylee gonsalves a human being by stabbing Kaylee gonsolves from which she died those specific names will certainly be provided to you mr. co-burger by way of being

provided notice of these documents or give copy of these no contact orders What you do need to be advised of and what will be in this. So, contract orders you are prohibited for having to take contact with them as you whatever. Let's first start, Susan, with the smile that he gives his attorney as he walks in. What's your take on that? Okay. So it's a flash. It's not a genuine smile.

When the mouth goes like this, let's like it like that. All that is is just making like an affirmative, affirmative acknowledgement. Like, hi. It's basically saying, hi. That's not a genuine smile. That was a nervous smile. You could see that with the stretched mouth. This lips are pressed together.

So that's what we call a flash smile. The other thing is I want you to pay attention to is that look at his cheek. You want to kind of pull in a really tight view of that because you can literally see his heart beating through his cheek. That is huge high cognitive load. That is an engorgement of blood that is causing this. high emotional stress. You'll see that he kind of gets a little uncomfortable at first as, you know, the indictment is being delivered. That would be considered being normal because anyone in that situation would have shift or feel slightly uncomfortable. But you see jaw clenching, and that is

where we're called tension. You see him swallowing. This is fear. You'll also see him kind of take his tongue and wrap it or rub it around the inside of his mouth or purse it out. This is where the lips become dry. That's that fight or flight response. So he's pushing his lips away from his teeth to kind of lubricate the membranes inside of his mouth. So these are all fear flight or flight responses. But he does not that he does understand.

So I do believe he understands the capacity of what he's being charged with. And he does add affirmatives, nod yeses. But I'd like to be able to get into when they're actually pulling down the indictment about what he is charged with and his body language. Okay, well, keep that in mind because I do want to ask you that and also the million dollar question, which is, and we're going to play a little bit more of him in court, if there's

any indication based on his demeanor in court, if this is somebody who is innocent and they are shocked by the idea of these wrongful charges against them, or this is somebody who committed the crime and knows that the jig is up and is in a lot of trouble. Don't answer it yet. We're going to play a little bit more of him. This is Brian Coburger's latest court appearance. First, this is his arraignment on the felony charges, where the charges are actually read out to him. All rise.

Thank you very much. Please be seated. Good morning, everybody. Yes. Do you understand the charge in count one? Yes. Do you understand the charge in count two, murder in the first degree? in the first degree? Yes.

Do you understand the maximum penalty? Yes. Do you understand the charge of count three murder in the first degree? Yes. Do you understand the maximum penalty? Yes. Do you understand the charge in count four murder in the first degree? Yes.

Do you understand the maximum penalty? Yes. Do you understand the charge in count five, murdering the first degree? Do you understand the maximum penalty? no penalty? Yes. Okay, Ms. Taylor, is Mr. Culverger prepared to plead to these charges? You want our, they will be standing silent. Okay, Ms. Taylor, is Mr. Coburger prepared to plead to these charges?

You want our, we will be standing silent. Okay, because Mr. Coverger is standing silent, I'm going to enter not guilty pleads on each charge. Yeah, so he chose, as I mentioned, to not actually. say not guilty, chose to stand silent. Okay, I feel like there's a lot to get to there. And you heard him say yes, yes to understanding the charges your take. Yeah, I mean, very confidently too. And with the tonality of confidence. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, his tonality remained the same. And he nodded. So it was consistent with he understood. And if he would have said yes, and he tilted his head, no, then you would see this incongruency.

you don't see that here. One of the things that I'd like to bring attention to is he didn't deny or confirm, right? And when they brought down that and wanted to know what his plea was, and his attorney stood up, right, and said basically that, you know, he wants to remain silent there. And he doesn't move. His head remains in the same position. So that is telling me that there's something that we don't know that's about to happen. So I don't know whether he's got a plea deal going on, whether he may be pleading, guilty. That's so interesting. You say that because some of us have been wondering one of the reasons did he not enter an actual plea.

Maybe he hasn't, he's trying to open himself up to negotiations and enter a plea or is the defense so confident in their case, they're ready to go. They feel they might have exculpatory evidence that proves he didn't do this. I'll throw that back at you. Yeah. And you know, again, we don't know. we don't know that's what makes this case so interesting right as as a stuff starts to unfold and and you know we've seen this before where we didn't have somebody this lot one of these last

cases that we saw on national tv where they didn't bring on a defense witness right they were so confident so i see this especially as being a trial consultant sometimes they have these rose colored glasses they think they're so confident in their position that they don't realize the importance of maybe witness testimony, et cetera. But I personally think she's got something up her sleep. I think that she's sharp. She's got a plan and she knows exactly where she's going. So it'd be interesting to see what happens because in my years of 18 years in this work,

I have never been in a court trial where an attorney has done that ever. Okay. It was different. It was different. And we're all speculating why that happened. Okay. Susan, I want to let you go with asking you this final question that I mentioned before. And that's when you're watching him in court, does he have the demeanor of somebody, as I said,

who is innocent, is hit with these charges out of nowhere, doesn't know where they came from, is panicked for their life, or is somebody who's nervous because they know they did this and they're in trouble. I know it could be very speculative. You might not have the answer, but I wanted to throw it to you. I don't see nervousness because I don't see movement, jitteriness, a fidgetiness. I don't see eyes darting all over the place. I don't see this movement of anxiety. I see a very cold, blank stared person who has a psychological problem.

I think he's either psychopathic or sociopathic or the two. What's going to be really interesting is how well that demeanor is going to go over on the jury pool because a jury wants to see genuine empathy. and compassion for the victims, even if he didn't do it, right? Because if he were accused, he's going to show anger, frustration. The natural instinct is that when you're being accused, your hands are up as like a cat, right? I'm going to fight back and you're going to see this in the eye facial expressions. You're going to see it in the mouth, press mouth, you're going to see the disagreement.

You're going to see this. We don't see this here. that's what kind of brings me to has he come to a place where he is willing to admit or to plead guilty and he's hoping that he's going to be able to get off the death penalty i don't know that's speculative but i will tell you that juries generally want to see genuine emotion we've seen this over and over again lots of cases you and i know we've covered is they want to know does that does that um defendant look like and he's the appearing is if he has empathy and compassion and he just doesn't and it's very scary if he makes any form

of eye contact with any of those jurors oh my god you know i just want to because it is it is almost like you're looking at the face of evil if you've never seen a demon before you have seen one now and let's leave it right there oh my goodness susan constantine profito thank you so much i thought this was a fascinating discussion. And we'd love to have you back on as we get more video of Brian Koberger where they're in court or some other video that comes out. We really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for inviting me. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

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