Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Kohberger Control’: BTK Killer’s Daughter Reacts to Accused Idaho Murderer Standing Silent

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

The man accused of brutally murdering four University of Idaho students in November 2022 stood silent at his arraignment hearing Monday when asked to enter a plea. Bryan Kohberger chose to stand silent after telling the judge he understood the quadruple murder charges against him. The daughter of infamous serial killer BTK Dennis Rader said the accused student killer reminded her of her dad and his obsession with control, theorizing Bryan needed “a little Kohberger control” in court. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber discusses the possible parallels between BTK and Kohberger’s court appearances and behaviors with Kerri Rawson, BTK's daughter.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.

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Hey, Ms. Taylor, is Mr. Culver, prepared to plead to these charles? You're on our people standing silent. Because Mr. Coburger is standing silent. I'm going to answer that guilty, please. I need to charge.

Accused killer Brian Coburger had an interesting arraignment by standing silent. Kerry Rosson, the daughter of infamous serial killer BTK, knows about that all too well when her father did the same. She sits down to discuss the similarities and what we should be thinking about with the alleged murderer of the Idaho 4. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. There is always so much to discuss regarding Brian Coburger, so many twists, turns, odd aspects of the case. And this, of course, is the former Ph.D. grad student who is accused of burglarizing a Moscow, Idaho college house, and then murdering four college students inside. Madison Mogan, Zonernernernernernodal, Ethan Chapin, and Kaley Gonzalez.

As Coburger was just indicted by a grand jury and arraigned on his five felony charges, and as this case progresses, towards trial. We want to get some perspective. And I want to start with a very special guest. I'm joined right now by Kerry Rawson, New York Times bestselling author of a serial killer's daughter because she is the daughter of Dennis Rader, a serial killer known as BTK, who murdered 10 people over the course of 17 years. Carrie, thank you so much for coming on to Sidebar. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. one of the reasons we really wanted to have you on is because Koberger during his arraignment instead of actually pleading not guilty to the charges that were read against him

he chose instead to stand silent and the court basically entered the not guilty please on his behalf because he didn't say anything and we were all thinking you know why does this sound familiar why does this sound familiar well it's my understanding your father did the exact same thing, right? Yeah, and it had been a while since I wrote my book. So I'm the best-selling offer of a serial killer's daughter, and I actually had wrote about my dad standing silent, and then everything going on, I totally forgot that Monday. And so I forgot to tell me, yeah.

And then my friend on Twitter is the one that, like, reminded everybody. So my father was arrested in February of 2005. I was notified that he was the BTK serial killer by the FBI. So we knew right away that first weekend he was guilty. The FBI called us and told us that my dad was confessing the first night to 10 murders, including children. They told us they had found souvenirs from the crime scenes and underneath our four boards, driver's licenses, jewelry, things like that. So we knew right away even before the public did that my dad was guilty. And so we started writing my dad's letters that's freeing and saying, hey, if you're going,

guilty you know you should man up and do the right thing and take the plea and uh my family called him talked on the phone and so you see these ongoing conversations between my dad and my family and his friends for months my dad was actually trying to decide if he should plead guilty if he wanted to trial he said he needed to see the evidence and my mom and i were like what what you know you did this like what is it you need to see that they have on you he was very conflicted very conflicted by like his duties to his family he didn't want all this really bad stuff coming out it all came out anyway and he was warning us in letters he's like all this stuff is going to come out basically like about my father being in bondage and dressed up and all

these horrible things he did with his murders and so we're just learning a little bit about my dad and literally a lot of stuff came out in court after he fled so mid-april then he's warning us he says look I got an arraignment coming up you know what I have some of these letters So if I may, I'll read you. Let me read some of them. One was we start on pre-arrayment next week on April 19th. The dog and pony show will start. Media and rest is a mess.

Then he goes on to say in a different one, there will be a non-guilty plea at some point. That will give us time to review more evidence. At some point, we will make final plea so much for all the legal. And then in another one, arraignment is May 3rd. My attorneys want me to plea not guilty to buy some time to decide our final. plea. Bottom line, if I plead not guilty, I'm not selling the family out at the time. I need time to make a final decision. Yeah, exactly. So we're going back and forth and we didn't know what he was

going to do. And so behind the scenes, we were working. So he had a team of public defenders and they were in our corner, victim supporting us, telling us they would pick us up from the airport, take care of us. Now, we didn't go to court, but they kept us in the loop the whole time of what was going on with my father. And they didn't even really know how to work with him. He was very difficult to defend it obviously to work with, but they were very patient and kind with him and with my family. And so then on May 3rd, he did stand silent. I think he didn't want it to be on the record that he was not guilty because he knew he was guilty. So he would like he had wrote us about he was trying to see if he like qualified for the insanity defense, which of course he didn't. There's

a conversation where he was talking to his lawyers. Like can I get can I get the insanity defense and be put in like a mental hospital versus prison? And we were having to. that conversation and i was asking people can my dad take the insanity defense and they're like no he's not insane he knew what he was doing and of course i believe that now but back then i even thought what if there's a death penalty because i didn't know and it wasn't in play at the time for my father's crimes so really my dad was taking us on one of his narcissistic psychopathic rides for months basically trying to figure out what he was going to do and we were begging him like please just do just man up and do it for our family because we were going to have to be on the stand we would

have to testify. I would have had to testify. And so finally, then he did stand silent. I think just because he didn't want it on the record. And then six weeks later, he did take the plea, but we didn't know what he was going to do that day. And I'm not even sure his defense did. And then when my dad did plead guilty to the 10 murders in late June of 2005, he thought all he was going to have to say is I'm guilty on this offense. And the judge was like, no, no. And the judge was like, you're going to have to prove and confess that you did this. And so the judge asked him things like, like, you know, on what date? What is the address?

Who was the victim? And my narcissistic father was really thrown. And you can see it on his face. And he gets really mad and upset. And then he can't even remember all the details like victim's names addresses. And the thing that's so curious about it from a legal point of view, whether the defendant says not guilty or has the court enter it on his behalf, it has the same practical fact. And we're trying to understand why would Brian Koberger have chosen to stand silent?

And there's been people who said, well, maybe he's trying to open himself up for favorable negotiations because the death penalty could be on the table here. There's no insanity defense in Idaho. So we put that away. That's not on the table for him. Some have been saying, well, maybe he doesn't want the optics of him in court saying not guilty. It doesn't look right that he's trying to fight this. In your experience, based on what you saw with your father, what do you think's going on here with coburger um i don't know based on coburgers mannerisms his body the way he was walking now i understand he probably had a vest on um is he does he have diminished capacity and that's maybe something you can talk about is there

a some sort of diminished capacity clause in idaho from what i'm hearing versus it's it's it's limited it's limited and i don't think he's going to go that route based on what we've seen it seems that they're going to strike at evidence that he didn't do it that you know that they have maybe some exculpatory evidence that he's not the killer. I just think it's so interesting why a defendant, I think you're right. I think there might be something optics-wise. So it seems like your father didn't want that on the record. He didn't want it on the record that he said not guilty for a variety of different reasons.

When you see what your father did and you see what co-burger did, do you see those similarities? Well, you got to, my father's a very interesting individual. He has rules and morals and standards of his own. He has lines. He doesn't cross. So he appeared to be very law-abiding, a very strong family man, very, like, like, OCD with, like, documents and data. To me, Koberger strikes me the same way as somebody with this PhD, you know, getting a Ph.D. And, like, cyber forensics.

Like, I could tell. So my dad, I don't think, to me, it would have been my dad long. lying in my like my public the way everybody perceived my father publicly my father never lied of course he's a pathological liar so he was just all twisted up and didn't know really what to do and when my dad stood silent and they told and they put in the non-guilty he was crying my father a psychopathic murder was crying at the end of that because it was bothering him so much like i think he maybe just wanted to take the guilty with coburger maybe he just doesn't know if he is going to take a guilty plea maybe he needs

like he needs more time. I don't think he just wanted to put it on the record out of his mouth. And you could tell, if you watched the video, the two-minute clip of the judge reading off the charges and reading the victim's names and then that long number, Kohlberger's very mad, like his jaws popping and his veins are popping. And then when the judge gets the victim's names wrongs, it looks like Koviger's mouthing Zana and Kaley.

Like either he's really, really irritated that the judge doesn't know as much as him or like has kind of smeared his, his eyes. Interesting. You know, we had a body language expert on our prior sidebar talking about the mannerisms of Demeanor of Brian Coburg and what that says. While I have you here, there is another connection between your father and Coburger, and that is that I saw this report that your father, who is serving 10 consecutive life sentences,

has seemingly expressed some sympathy for Coburger. he said since I spent from February 2005 to April 2005 in a cell by myself, I know how he feels very lonely and soon letters started to come in. I read a lot of the Bible and wrote poetry. I don't know if you had an opportunity to see those comments from your father, but I was curious what you made of that. Oh, yeah, I see everything. I've got us both on Google Alert so I can keep track of what my father's doing.

Yeah. I mean my so when my father was arrested he realized basically the gig was up and that everything was going to come out and he had a very hard time understanding what had happened because for my father he always knew he was BTK so he knew he was BTK and a family man and he walked around with a secret for 31 years and so he didn't understand he a student our family just had accepted him I think he's he's not all there obviously and so when we found out of course everything changed and he didn't understand what had happened like where did my family go why aren't they just my family and then he realized we were the eighth victim family and he was he was very rattled lonely embarrassed depressed suicidal at times those first months and honestly I don't think my father wanted to be in court he's very uncomfortable in court very uncomfortable around law enforcement lawyers you know professionals and he was no longer in control so when you put somebody like my dad or Coburger in court, they're no longer in control. They have absolutely

no control. And so maybe Coburger standing silent was a little bit of just exerting just a tiny bit of Coburger control. And the fact that your father has this sympathy for him and what he's going through? I mean, who else would know what it's like to be an infamous, he accuses an infamous criminal than an infamous criminal. Plus, my dad's just trying to assert himself back into the media and make himself relevant. By the way, before I let you go, I had to to ask you about something. So we know that Coburger, before he was arrested, as I mentioned, he was studying criminology, and he was being taught by Dr. Catherine Ramsland, who's actually the leading authority on the BTK killings. My understanding at the time of this recording,

she has still not come out and spoken about the Coburger case. That connection, Dr. Catherine Ramsland, I was curious what you thought about that. It was a shocker to me, so I was really relieved when Coburger was arrested. very relieved on December 30th. And then about 30 seconds later, it started coming out that he was a student under Dr. Ramsland at DeSells University for his master's program and probably the end of his bachelor's.

And then I have PTSD and it just completely flared up. Just awful. Dr. Ramsland co-wrote a book with my father about my father's crimes. They're very close, like colleagues, friends. She goes and visits, calls him, they play chess. So the fact that, a so-called expert on serial killers, not just my dad, a so-called expert on serial killers

and psychopaths missed one right under her nose. Plus, I believe, recommended him for the PhD program in Washington is what the word is. It's not, I mean, it happens. I mean, my dad was under our nose for 30 years, so it happens. It's just concerning to me. And she's still, she's not doing media, but I think it's probably because the gag, or she's going to be called as a witness. Have you heard from her at all? No, we're not in direct touch anymore. We don't have an ongoing relationship. Well, listen, I think that this is, you know,

it's an interesting study with Koberger. It's eerie similarities with your father. Carrie, I know this is always difficult to talk about. So not only do we appreciate you taking the time to come onto sidebar, but also revisiting these moments in your life. We really appreciate it. And thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Spotify.