Law&Crime Sidebar - How Authorities Will Transport Accused Student Murderer Bryan Kohberger Back to Idaho

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Former U.S. Marshall Art Roderick details how authorities will transport accused student murderer suspect Bryan Kohberger back to Idaho to face four murder charges. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy and Roderick break down the possibilities. LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe 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. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and thanks for joining us here on Law and Crime for Sidebar. Welcome back. We are coming to you from Moscow, Idaho. This is where those four University of Idaho college students were senselessly murdered on November 13th. They were Kaylee Gonzalez, Maddie Mogan, Ethan Chapin, and Zana Kernodal. And now a man has been charged. His name is Brian Coburger. He was a 28-year-old Washington State University PhD candidate studying criminal justice and criminology. He is going to waive extradition and will be

bought back to Moscow, Idaho to answer to those four first-degree murder charges and a felony burglary charge. So we thought we should talk a little bit about what the challenges are in apprehending somebody such as this and transporting them across country. Joining me to do so is Art Roderick. He is a retired U.S. Marshal. He was also the assistant director of investigations for the U.S. Marshal Service, which tracks down fugitives. Art, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. I know that the U.S. Marshal Service wasn't involved in this particular arrest, but I was hoping you could offer us some insight into what it takes to track down somebody going cross-country and conducting that surveillance. Yeah, I mean, basically, I think what law enforcement did in this particular case is

exactly what they're supposed to do. They didn't share a lot of information with the public, and I know it can be very frustrating for family members, for press, and for the public to not know. everything that's going on within the investigation. But I think in this particular case, it worked out very well where law enforcement held a lot of information back. And generally, having done this over almost 40 years, I can tell you that usually when you do press conferences and you're not sharing a lot of information with the public, then you've got something really good going on on the investigative side, which I think is exactly the case

here. And to track somebody across the country, it's not like it used to be about 2020. years ago. It's fairly easy now with computers, cell phone tracking devices that law enforcement has, looking at social media, figuring out cell phone drops, towers, what phones were connecting at a particular time, especially in the Moscow area. And I think once you put all that together, also with a lot of blood at the scene in DNA, mixed DNA, that they're able to sort at this particular time. I think when you put all that together, that led them to this particular individual, which then led them to Pennsylvania, where they conducted some surveillance before

they made the arrest. But it's not as difficult as it used to be with all the technology that we have. And not only that, but we have all these traffic cameras that are set up and toll booth cameras. And to go from Idaho all the way to Pennsylvania, you know, obviously he would have had to have hit some tolls in some traffic cameras on the way. And they might have been able to follow him all the way across the country using that type of information. Of course, that's all very, very resource-driven. It takes a lot of time by law enforcement to come up with that information. I would assume they would have put one of those GPS tracking devices somewhere on his vehicle before he left. Maybe they did that. Maybe they

didn't. But would they physically follow him or would they just use those other means in order to track him? But there's other means. I mean, anytime you use a tracking device on a vehicle, you'll always have to be worried that something's going to go wrong. It's going to fall off. The batteries are going to die. And if that's the only means you've got of tracking the vehicle, then you've completely lost your suspect. They can track him by cell phone. They can track them by the computer, by a social media site. So there's plenty of other ways to track individuals instead of just putting a bird dog or what we used to call a bird dog or a tracking device on the vehicle. They might have done that.

I don't know. They really didn't have to in this day and age. But a lot of times having two or three ways of tracking an individual, especially an individual like this, is the way to go. There was some reporting that they conducted surveillance on him in Pennsylvania, maybe following him into grocery stores, things like that. Talk to us about conducting surveillance. Yeah, I mean, all the law enforcement agencies, large police departments and all the Fed agencies, whether it's Marshalls, ATF, DEA, FBI, all have surveillance units that specifically do this for a living. I mean, that's what they do. They go out and surveil individuals, and they're very good at what they do.

So for them to be surveilling this individual, they might have been putting the final touches. on their affidavits to get the arrest warrants and also to start looking at the extradition process of getting him from Pennsylvania back to Moscow, Idaho. Art, the Monroe County District Attorney's Office said that they went in somewhere between 130 and 145 a.m. to get Brian Coburger out of his parents' house. That sounds like it could be pretty dangerous. Any entry into a house is dangerous. I can't tell you how many U.S. Marshals have been lost over the years doing entries into home. And I think this was the key part, too.

They had been conducting surveillance on this individual. So I think they had a pretty good idea of what his habits were, maybe what time he went to bed. But I'm sure they conducted surveillance on the house, determined everybody had gone to sleep, lights went out, house was quiet, and then they made the entry. We used to do that all the time. The marshals arrest 100,000 fugitive felons every year. So they're pretty used to doing these types of arrests, particularly.

very early in the morning when the individuals are sleeping so that they don't pose a threat to law enforcement and other family members in the house. Art, I know the U.S. Marshal Service wasn't involved in this particular apprehension, but talk to us about the challenge of then taking somebody from Pennsylvania across the country to Idaho and how that will likely happen. Yeah, well, the Marshal Service basically is in charge of transportation of prisoners within the United States. And they do about 206,000 prisoner new moves, both by aircraft. We have our own airlines, justice prisoner, alien transportation system, or as people like to call it, con air. But the marshals have that authority and they do it for the federal court system,

but they also assist state and local entities out there based on a request to move prisoners across the country. And they do this every single day. And they're very good at it. And they have It's the only government-run airline in the country, and amazingly, even though it's government-run, it works very, very well. I can't imagine that they're going to drive him or put him on a commercial flight. I would see this happening on a private aircraft. What are your thoughts on that? No, they would, this individual is too high profile.

And a lot of the state and local entities, the larger law enforcement agencies out there, usually have extradition units of their own. and they deal with either driving a prisoner from one location to the other or flying them commercially. I can't imagine they would fly this particular individual commercially, both because of the security issue from the public, but also he's such a high profile individual. I would think they would fly him back on a private plane, and the request might be into the Marshal Service already considering his extradition hearing is coming up. And we would put him on a small aircraft by himself with three

for marshals or law enforcement and go ahead and move him across the country just like that. Art, how quickly do you see them transporting Brian Kobatberger from Pennsylvania to Idaho? Transportation to prisoners across the U.S. has done very quietly, secretively. Marshal service or any other entity does not talk about transportation issues or security issues or when an individual is being moved. So it could happen very quickly or they might take some time and wait a little while. But I know you guys will be stationed at the courthouse, at the jail, probably over at the police department also to try to get some information on when he's coming in. But that's something that's kept very close to the chest. You're not going to know

until the vehicle or a convoy pulls in. And I can tell you in the past, from the martial service perspective, sometimes we send decoy convoys around so that we can ensure the security. and safety of a particular individual being moved. Interesting. Well, you know us all too well. I think we'll be stationed out at the airport as well. I'm sure you will be, yes. Well, Art Roderick, retired U.S. Marshal, former assistant director of investigations for the U.S. Marshal Service. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise and for joining us here on Sidebar. We hope you'll come back sometime. Oh, absolutely. Thank you, Angel. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg and Logan Harris,

Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Kiera Bronson handles our social media. And Alyssa Fisher is our booking producer. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, coming to you from Moscow, Idaho, and I'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.