Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Real Story Behind The Idaho Murders...

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

The Real Story Behind The Idaho Murders...

Four students were found murder. I mean, just a really grisly murder. And for about six weeks, they really weren't much in the way of leads. But they got really lucky that they found a knife sheath. There was a small speck of DNA. And wouldn't you know, there's a guy named Brian Coburger, who's doing his Ph.D. At nearby Washington State University, they see him doing some really crazy things. They see him taking the trash out at 1 a.m.

They see him scrubbing his white Alantra nonstop. I'll bet he just thought he got away. with it like when he was disposing of all of these things like i'm sure he was worried but i'm sure initially over the first week or so he thought i'm good he definitely probably thought he had gotten away with it for a while hey this is matt cox and i am here with connor powell and he is a journalist and a podcast producer and we're going to be talking about some of his podcasts and a little bit about um his experience as a journalist maybe we'll get into all of it. I'm not sure. We'll see how it goes. Check out the,

the, uh, the interview. The podcast that you're producing right now. Um, and what is, what is that one about? It's the Idaho massacre. It's on my heart. Um, it's about Brian Coburger and the investigation into the deaths of the four college students at Moscow, Idaho. It's a place, uh, obviously those grizzly murders to place about a year ago. Uh, now and Coburger was arrested, I guess about 10 months ago now, um, last December. And so the Idaho massacre basically is the story of the investigation, the story of the people who were brutally killed, the story into how Kovberger was identified, how he was arrested, and then sort of what do we know now after his arrest, which, you know, I think that's sort of

the most interesting thing about the podcast and also the investigation, which is that there was a flurry of information around his arrest. And then it's really just gone quiet the last a couple months. Right. When, when is he supposed to be, or is he going to trial? I mean, he's, he is going to trial, right? He is going to trial. You know, that's been one of the interesting things is Idaho was trying to get the trial started by the beginning of October. So literally, he was supposed to go to trial in the next couple of weeks. And both his lawyer and Kohlberger and the, the prosecution seemed like full on, let's get it done. Let's get it started. Let's get going. The last couple of weeks, there's been serious indications that that just wasn't going to

happen. And they've now postponed the start of the trial. It's a little bit up in the air when it's going to start. And part of the reason is there's some significant questions about the DNA that is used to link Coburger to the crime. And I think that's one of things that's so fascinating about this case. And we go into it in depth in the Idaho masker, which is that for the most part, DNA is DNA, right? You know, a criminal leaves his DNA at the crime scene and the police gather up the DNA. Usually they run it through one of the many databases. They get a hit. Or if they have a suspect, they can basically take DNA from the suspect, match it to the DNA that was left to the crime scene.

You've got a direct match. Right. That's not what happened with Brian Coburg. I think that's part of the thing that is so interesting, but it's also one of the main reasons why there's a delay in his trial. So they did something different, which is they can we, I'm sorry, I hate to do this, but can we go back and talk about the actual crime to begin with? Like that, you know, that way it's it kind of falls in place. Yep. Um, so he was, he was like, I mean, he actually was a, uh, what, a teacher's assistant at the school at the university. So Brian Koberger was, um, a graduate student at a nearby school. This all took place at the university of Idaho where four students, um, of different ages, but. pretty much all upperclassmen living off campus at the University of Idaho. Brian Coburger was across the border at Washington State University as a graduate student. He was doing his PhD in criminology. He had already had a master's in criminology. He was very well thought of by his academic

program. And he got into this PhD program in Washington State University, which is just right across the border from where the University of Idaho is. And essentially what happened was in November, it was a Saturday night, Sunday morning, four students living in an off-campus house at the University of Idaho were found murdered. I mean, just a really grisly murder. They were stabbed. They were sliced by a knife. The blood was such that there are pictures of blood dripping through the foundation of the house.

that's how much blood had been spilled inside this off-campus house. There were also two roommates who survived the night. They were not attacked, but they were also in the house during the attacks. And for about six weeks, four to five, six weeks, there really weren't much in the way of leads. The only thing investigators in Idaho had was essentially a car that had been seen driving around the area, picked up on people's doorbell cams, some security footage of. of a white Hyundai Alantra. But that didn't tie anyone.

I mean, it was a pretty common car. It's a four-door sedan. And police really didn't have much in the way of leads. There was no stalker to, you know, they looked into whether or not there was a stalker for any of the three girls. There was nothing that came up. They looked to see if there was anybody who had sort of been bothering them, harassing them, an ex-boyfriend, you know, all of those sort of traditional suspects, police were

investigating and they didn't come up with anything but they had this white honda elantra but they got really lucky that they found a knife sheath inside the crime scene and on that knife sheath there was a small speck of uh DNA and if you look at a knife sheath it was a kbar marine style knife and it had a button clasp and just on the inside of the button there was a small amount of DNA. So you could see how many probably closed it or was funneling at some point and they left it there. The knife was not there. There was no other DNA. There was blood everywhere. And so for about four to five weeks, you know, the whole community in that region was really concerned. You know, who killed these four, you know, they look like sort of poster child, poster children for

Amber Cromby and Fitch, you know, model. They're young students. They're one of them had already graduated and was about to go off to her first job in Austin. She was just literally visiting that weekend. And it was and someone in that this was not like you said. There's just nobody that they knew like they knew. Then they kind of knew that somebody came to this house, got into the house, attacked them like it like that's a that's a super scary thing because the one place when you're in your house, you just feel safe.

Exactly. And I mean, this is an off campus house right by fraternity row. three of the girls were in sororities, one of the boy that was killed, Ethan Chapin, he was also in a fraternity. This was a house of upper class and where people were constantly always going. So it's unlikely they lock the doors. It's a small town. It's an Idaho. It's a college campus area. You know, you've got kids coming and going. And so like people feel safe there, felt really safe there. Once the murders happen, I mean, the town goes into lockdown. Half the students leave from the campus. I mean, people are terrified because they don't have any

leads, police aren't very forthcoming on the information they have. And so for the rest of November and early December, the University of Idaho is really, you know, I mean, it's a terrifying place. We talk to people who are going there as journalists or who live there and like, you know, people were taking their exams from home and stuff like that. So fast forward, police have this small speck of DNA. They run it through the different databases and nothing comes up which is pretty unusual for if you think of a quadruple homicide like those people don't normally whoever kills four people with a knife there's usually a criminal record right yeah they've been in trouble before they didn't just up and decide to do this all yeah yeah um and so

these databases produce nothing um but if you remember a couple years ago they solved the golden gate killer um by using something called uh genetic uh DNA genetic genealogy, which is essentially, you know, if you've used 23 or me or some of these ancestry DNA type public databases, you take a swab in your mouth, you upload it, and then you find out who all your cousins are. And what they did in the Golden State Killer was they basically did that, they put it in public databases, and then they were able to find cousins, third cousins, second cousins of the killer from the DNA that they had from, you know, 30 years ago. and they slowly and painstakingly put together a profile of who that killer was from the 70s and 80s.

Well, they did the same thing with. Started linking, linking, right until they got to. Right. And then they checked it. The police for the Golden State Killer, they checked it against other possible suspects, you know, are any of these or their DNA and stuff like that. So it's a unique way to find a suspect, but it's not, it's not a traditional way, right? It's not like cheek swab from the suspect, criminal DNA evidence left at this scene. You got a perfect match.

And ancestry DNA and 23 Me, they don't allow this type of search, but there are other private, public databases that are not criminals, but there are other databases used for other things. And so a company basically worked with the FBI and investigators in Idaho, and they did the same thing, which is they took the DNA sample from the crime scene, from that knife sheath. And they uploaded it. And all of a sudden, they got hundreds of cousins, hundreds of second cousins, third cousins. And, you know, they eliminated some based on age. They eliminated some based on location. And all of a sudden, after a couple days of looking at the potential list, they find out

that there's two lists. There's the list of white Alantra owners in the region. And then there's the list of DNA suspects. And wouldn't you know, there's a guy named Brian Coburger who's doing his PhD. at nearby Washington State University, which is only about a 25-minute drive from where the murders happen, who owns a white Hyundai Alantra, and he is a cousin of the killer. So police zero in on him. And at this point, school's getting out. You know, everyone's going home for the holidays. And police, he's now like the main suspect. But they're sort of not able to

track him at all times. He drives home with his father from Pullman, Washington to eastern Pennsylvania where he lives, where his parents live, and he gets pulled over twice on that drive. And there's confusion about whether or not the FBI was tracking him or whether or not they were just random pullovers. But he gets pulled over twice. There's video from the cop cam of him getting pulled over with his father. And by the time he gets home to eastern Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania police are on him. They're watching his house. And over the course of about four or five days before he's arrested, they see him doing some really crazy things. They see him taking the trash out at 1 a.m. They see him scrubbing his white Alantra nonstop. And they see him taking small little bags and

putting it into his neighbor's trash. So all of a sudden, there's like alarm bells going off within law enforcement, right? And he's ultimately arrested. And he claims innocence. I, you know, I had nothing to do with, do with this. You know, I want to be, I'm going to be fully exonerated, but he's arrested. And he's found in his shorts, T-shirt, and he's literally putting trash in the plastic bags at 1 a.m. when he's arrested in the middle of the night. And, um, But the issue, though, in terms of going back to the trial, is how did police zero in on him? How many people did they exclude as part of that DNA process? And that's essentially what the defense is arguing and what is before the judge, which is slowing down the trial that he's supposed to have, was supposed to start on October, I think, second.

Essentially, the defense is saying, well, we want all that information about all those other suspects. suspects who had DNA that linked to him. And so that trial was supposed to start in early October. It's now being delayed. Now, when he was arrested, they were also able to get a cheek swab. And it's a direct match to the DNA that was left at the crime scene. But the defense doesn't really have a lot of good options. So, you know, what do you do?

You challenge everything. You can. They're challenging the evidence. And they're essentially saying, like, forget about the job. direct match DNA. Let's talk about the genetic genealogy in the process because it's really never been used in a prosecution before. It was used in the Golden Gate serial killer, but never in an active, that's a cold case. This was an active investigation. So the defense is really desperately trying to get all of that DNA excluded. And that's part of what they're dealing

with right now. The other thing they're dealing with, it's delaying the trial is there's a huge amount of media attention on this trial, right? And both the prosecution and the defense do not want there to be cameras in the courtroom. But the media obviously wants it. And it appears the judge is leaning towards it, but he's yet to make a ruling. So there's been several hearings about whether or not there should be any cameras in the courtroom for the actual trial. There's been cameras in the courtroom for all the hearings, but the prosecution and the defense don't want it. I wonder why. Well, the defense is saying essentially that all of the focus on Brian Koberger's face and people going on TV and talking about, do you see his eyes or do you see the

way he carries himself? That's essentially tainting the jury pool. The prosecution, it's not 100% clear, although, you know, I think they don't want anything that could essentially disrupt the trial or hurt the trial. But they've had cameras in for all of the hearings, for all of his appearances before the court pretrial hearings, arraignment. He's been, you know, he's been videographed or he's had his photo taken, video taken, stuff like that. So at this point, it's kind of, I don't say it's mute, but it probably isn't going to make as big a deal as they think. Because once the trial starts, the jury's already been selected. it's probably more important now for jury selection ahead of the jury selection I guess but once the jury starts you know is in the booth is in the trial and the trial starts

it probably isn't going to make a huge deal but the defense and the prosecution right now are both essentially saying we don't want cameras in there yeah I was going to say even if you exclude all of that even if you're the defense you know or the prosecution the truth is is that there's no winning for you like if you lose or when your every move is going to be torn apart. So even if I said, look, I don't really care how the, how, you know, how it's going to affect the trial, my concern is I have to live my life after the trial. And everything I've done throughout this case is going to be picked apart.

Well, they should have done this or they should have done that. Or they, like, and having that on camera makes it so much worse for you, you know. Oh, definitely. I mean, that's the, that's the OJ effect, right? Right. And it's a Jodiarius. I think it was a similar one where, you know, you had a huge amount of interest, court TV is carrying it live. You can only see it today. I mean,

you can imagine how many TikTok channels will carry it, Twitch, you know, it will be carried lots of places, I'm sure they'll probably be carried on most of the cable networks. And, you know, if you just look at how much media has been following this case from the very start, again, you have four young attractive college students, brutally murdered in their, what should be a safe home, as you pointed out, and you have this, I don't want to say fascinating because I don't think that's the right word, but you have this individual who appeared to be on the path to helping solve crimes as a criminologist, and yet he's accused of one of the most horrific crimes we have seen in this country in a long time. Well, and he's not like, it's, it's a, he's an odd,

he's an odd suspect because it's not like he had a, he's had a, he's had a, he's had a, he's had, like you said, you know, dozens of run-ins. He's had, you know, he's had a super troubled past or, well, I think he had, didn't he have kind of a little bit of a troubled past, right? But not like. So he did. And the question is, is how much of it is a troubled past and how much of it is, you know, he had an incident when he was in high school.

And, you know, I think we'll find out more. But this is one of the things we go into in the podcast and we actually talk to one of his school counselors, I think. from high school. But Brian Coburger was enrolled in a specialty program that was for kids who wanted to become law enforcement or military. And so it was a specialty program. And after a few months, he has an issue at this school in Pennsylvania where he lives. And he gets suspended and then thrown out from this specialty program. And he ends up finishing high school essentially online he also was do you know what the issue was no and we interviewed a woman who um who does know

and she said you know for security you know personal reasons like you can't say what the issue was and all she was able to tell us was essentially that it involved complaints from female students from young women who were enrolled at the school as well and that's kind of all we know and and that's kind of been talked about that there was an incident what he do it's not really clear. And, you know, there were no charges broad. He wasn't arrested or anything like that. We don't know if it was anything physical. We don't know if it was a behavioral. Like, we just don't know. And so the question is, is like, is that an incident? Is it a precursor to being a murderer? Or was it just an unfortunate incident? We just, we don't know.

He's just a high school kid that's a boy that said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Who knows? But, you know, was it, who knows? But, you know, people say, and do stupid things when they're teenagers. So that doesn't necessarily mean that they went out and they're going to start murdering people. Right. The other thing that was sort of unique about his childhood that we go into depth as well is when he was younger, he was considered overweight. He was teased a lot, bullied according to friends for his weight.

And then around this high school period of time, and it doesn't overlap perfectly with the incident, but around that period of time, he loses a ton of weight. weight. He starts boxing. He gets in very good physical shape. But friends also say he's doing heroin and he's doing drugs. So he has this like really unique physical transformation that is exercise. I mean, he was boxing. He's, you know, he's running. He's also doing heroin with multiple people. And he has a condition according to himself and friends called visual snow, which is essentially his eyes and his brain are sort of always fuzzy and hazing. Now, we haven't had a doctor actually say that he was ever diagnosed with that,

but he wrote about it. He told his friends. He had a blog when he was like 15, 16, 17 years old where he talked about that. He was suicidal. He talked about hearing voices in his head. And the picture that's painted from the blog that he had when he was in high school is a kid who's got some serious mental issues. at the same time people who knew him said brian coberger was friendly he was quiet he was shy

but he could also engage with people as well and so you you see this sort of picture painted from a lot of different angles um but none of them really scream future you know serial killer or anything like that yeah he's killing kittens or something you know exactly I mean, that's exactly the first thing I thought of it was because, like, when you hear about kids killing cats or dogs or dissecting things in the yard, like people immediately think, oh, that kid's got, you know, there's just trouble ahead, right? Right. And at some point, he goes to rehab. He gets a degree, an undergraduate degree in criminology. He gets a master's in criminology.

And then he gets a full ride to WSU, Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. as first PhD in criminology. So by all accounts, like he seems to have turned his life around. He talked about, like, wanting to help solve crimes, especially in rural communities where, you know, there isn't a large police presence and stuff. And so whatever issues he might have had in high school, it seems to have flipped. But then there's also like other troubling things where there's reports that, you know, he's kind of creepy in bars and restaurants and he doesn't have a lot of friends in college.

he talks down to people a lot he's he's overly confident and he shuts people down um you know other classmates of his from college whether it's from undergraduate from his graduate from his graduate degrees describe a guy that like is sort of quick to snap at people quick to put people in their place you know a very sort of I'm tough I know what I'm doing and you know don't challenge me because I'm smarter than you again does that screen serial killer? Does that scream future killer? Like, not necessarily, but they're all pieces of the background of his his personality. And, you know, when the police were first looking into the murders, he wasn't on anyone's list. Like, he was a nobody. He was just a criminology student

at another neighboring school, you know, 10, 25, 30 miles away. They were looking at ex-boyfriends. They were looking at potential stockers, that type of thing. The usual suspects. Yeah. Right. Right. And so when Coburger is arrested, it really is sort of a shock to, okay, how did we get here? You know, and I think one of the things we try to do with Idaho masker is not just focus on Brian

Koberger because the four people who lost their lives, you know, they're innocent victims. But we did talk to one criminal analyst who talked about the incident. intimacy of murder, right? The intimacy of stabbing. But Joseph Morgan, who's the criminologist that we talked to, you know, talked about the intimacy was one direction. It was all from Brian Koberger's direction. He knew them. He stalked them. The four victims, they didn't know anything about him. There's no evidence that they had a connection to him. They weren't DMing with them as far as we know. You know, the family. of the victims say that, you know, they, they didn't have anything to do with Brian Coburger. So that intimacy, according to the criminologist we talked to Joseph Scott Morgan, like, it goes one way. Well, how did he, assuming it's him, which I'm making my assumption, how did he get to

them? Like, how did he, you know, he, there was a connection where he kind of knew or who one of the girls was or something. Wasn't there something like that? That's kind of the, um, still unanswered question and it's one of those things that like it probably will come out during a trial which is like how did he select them um there have been snippets of information there are reports that he followed at least two of the victims on social media there's also

reports that he reached out to them over instant messenger and things like that or direct message uh the that wasn't in the police affidavit it wasn't in the charging documents the prosecutor has never addressed that so maybe it's not true We just don't know. Now, presumably, in this day and age, what's the most likely way a guy stalks a couple attractive women when they're not at the same school? They don't know each other. There's no overlapping. Probably social media.

Yeah. But again, like, we just don't know that. And the prosecution hasn't really brought that information out. What about the fact that his phone had been, you know, that. they tracked his phone actually like in the area while the eulantra was there but the night of the actual murders his phone was placed on um airplane mode and like that that's that's what i heard i'm assuming that's also yeah and that's um that's in the police affidavit and the charging documents which is that uh on the night of the murders so basically the murders happen around four o'clock in

the morning sunday morning so um the four kids which is madison mogan um Kaylee Gonzalez, Zana Kranudel, and Ethan Chapin. They're all out having fun nights, Saturday night in a college town, and they all come home at different hours, but they're all home roughly by sort of about, you know, 1 a.m., 2 a.m. It appears they're hanging out, they're eating food. There's even a DoorDash delivery about 4 a.m. in the morning right before the murders. And at that exact moment, there's video of... of Coburgers white elantra, leaving his apartment complex at Washington State University.

But his phone's not traveling because his phone's on airplane mode. So his phone is disconnected, I think, from the Wi-Fi or whatever the most recent, closest cell phone tower at his apartment is. And then it isn't seen on again for about three hours. And there is video of a white elantra. driving around the neighborhood where the murders happen. He drives a white elantra. He was in his car.

In Idaho, you have to, as part of the pretrial hearings, you have to basically say whether or not you're going to use an alibi as part of your defense. And so you have to file that alibi. And so a couple of weeks ago, the Coburger's defense filed an alibi basically saying that he was out driving around in the middle of the night. and that's it they didn't say anything where he drove to um that doesn't help no no i it's particularly good alibi but um that was their alibi defense uh they didn't say they would use that alibi but you have to file in idaho a potential alibi if you're going to introduce it during trial um and essentially

what they filed was you know it was like a one page one and a half page document saying yes our client was out driving around that night. No, he was not anywhere near the murders. You know, he had nothing to do with it. But we can't tell you where all he went because he often has trouble sleeping. I think they mentioned. And so he just drives around in the middle of the night. And so that's, you know, that's kind of Koberger's defense so far and then to challenge the DNA. But we don't know how he's connected to the victims. We don't know if he had ever met them. We don't know if he just followed them. There is some cell phone evidence that he was potentially in the area because his cell phone pinged off of towers in the

area of the houses, of the house where the murder was committed. Prior to the night of the actual murder. Right. But that's, that's probably the least concrete evidence, because as you probably know and I've talked about like how a cell phone pings off of a tower is not an exact location. I mean, you can get an exact location, but generally they're pinging off the closest towers, which in a place like Idaho could be 20 miles away. And it's not always triangulated spot, right? So just because he's in that area in the weeks leaning up to the murders doesn't really mean anything. Also, the way Pullman, Washington is as a college town compared to the University

of Idaho is a college town. University of Idaho has, I think, like, slightly larger stores. I think there's a Sam's Club there and a Costco and a nicer target, whereas like Pullman, Washington has some smaller stores and restaurants. So it's possible people go back and forth. I mean, that's not like a crazy thing to suggest. But the night of, he is driving around somewhere in that area. When I say area, I mean like southeast, Washington, possibly southwestern Idaho, because they're sort of the same area. At some point around, I think it's around 6 a.m., his phone does actually ping and it's turned back on. And then later in the morning, he goes to a grocery store and is seen buying all sorts of material from a local grocery store.

What he bought, we don't know, but it wasn't considered groceries. It's like gloves or plastic bags and stuff like that. Again, more stuff that is sort of circumstantial, but suspicious. You start adding all those circumstantial, you know, bits of evidence together and it becomes, you know, overwhelming. Yeah. I mean, you know, we talked to a couple different lawyers about how they would, how you would go about defending Brian Coburger in this case. And the last couple episodes of the Idaho massacre, like we go into this because if you're a defense attorney, you know, you've got facts and then you've got to sort of create speculation. They don't have to prove that somebody else did the murder, but they do have to prove that there's reasonable doubt that somebody else did. And so they're attacking the evidence wherever they can. And this is the thing that's really interesting is that with the DNA, you know, we all sort of accept at this point that if there's DNA at the crime scene and there's DNA taken from the suspect and they match, that person was there, right?

Right. But this isn't exactly a match. This isn't his. They're not saying this is his DNA. They're saying, no, no. They are later. They are later in the filing because once he's arrested, they do a cheek swab and then they can tie it. There is a direct match.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But the defense is essentially saying how they got to the arrest, there isn't a direct match. So they're trying to argue that the process to get to the direct match is invalid. Should exclude his? Right. And in fairness, the courts have never ruled on this because the courts just have not seen a case of genealogy. being used to narrow the suspect pull down like this. It's possible that a judge might say, I'm not so sure about this process. You know, I think we should exclude this.

And that could invalidate everything. Now, there's, as we talked about, there's a lot of other circumstantial evidence pointing the finger, Brian Coburger. He drives a white elantra. He's a criminologist. Maybe there's DMs. Maybe there's not in terms of the connection.

Did he order this knife online at some point? These are all things we don't know. Yeah, but the DNA, if the DNA is a smoking gun and all the other stuff just makes it overwhelming. You get rid of the DNA and then they've actually got a chance of getting an acquittal, you know. Right. Now, the interesting thing about the DNA is you would think in a gruesome murder with a knife where there's four victims, two floor house and one person walking through the house that there would be other DNA. Yeah, hair, maybe sweat. The only thing that was found was this little piece of DNA on the inside of a snap on a knife sheath.

And so again, you can see the defense saying, oh, yeah, he looked at knives in a local Walmart one time, but like, that's not his DNA. I mean, it's his DNA, but like that he didn't order that knife or that's not his knife. He wasn't in the scene. You know, if he was there, there'd be way more DNA evidence. And so far, the prosecution has only been able to file this one little piece of DNA. When do, oh, they, I guess obviously they don't, they don't really tell you when, but I mean, what are the defense attorneys that you spoke with? When do they think that the court will rule on whether or not they're going to exclude the DNA? Yeah, just to be clear, I never spoke to Coburger's defense attorneys.

These are outside defense attorneys that we spoke to, you know, who've, you know, defended clients like this. You know, they're all a little bit puzzled by the process as well because we thought we had a hearing in August. The other thing that's kind of tricky is the prosecution has said they've turned over all of the files that they have on DNA and the investigation to the defense. but there was nothing in there from the FBI and the outside laboratory who conducted this genealogy DNA search, basically. So the prosecution is saying, we've turned over everything we have, but we didn't do this. This was the FBI. It was an outside lab. We don't have this documentation.

There's nothing we can turn over. And the defense is saying, well, hold on, slow down. Like, just because you don't have it doesn't mean you can't not turn it over. Like, you better go get it from the FBI. You better get it from this outside laboratory because this is a key part of how they identified Brian Koberger as their main suspect. And as a defense attorney, you know, the defense has rights. They have to have all the evidence.

And so that DNA has, or sorry, that documentation has not been handed over yet. And it's not clear if the judge is waiting to rule on the admissibility of the DNA until the documentation has turned over or if he's just not hasn't made up his mind but the defense is saying we are entitled to all of this documentation uh we need this now um we needed you know earlier this summer because we can't mount to defense if we don't know how they got to brian coberger we need to see this which is you know i mean you probably talk to a lot of uh people you know dealing with criminal cases and like one of the bedrock foundations of criminal cases is like the defense gets everything they get all yeah i don't know why they would even play game i mean that not that they

don't they play games all the time so i mean that's like very common but i mean it's such a high profile case where everybody's going to be looking over like what why even why even do that like what you know you you received something from the fbi right you need to hand that over like oh well that came from them it doesn't matter you used it to help further your investigation you have to give it to us period there's i mean if you if you really go down the rabbit hole there are people who are speculating like that the Idaho investigators handed the DNA over to the FBI who then handed it over to this outside lab. And it was the DNA was no longer in the laboratories in Idaho. That is my understanding that's not actually what happened. I think this is a really important

part. Like when you do a DNA sequence, you essentially get the data, right? You don't have to hand over the slide that has the DNA. But they hand over the sequence. That sequence gets uploaded to a database. and that's how it gets matched. But there is, there are people who are even speculating defense attorneys. They're like, we don't know if they handed over the actual DNA or if they just handed over the DNA data sequence, right? And so one of the defense attorneys we talked to simply said, like, until we know what was handed over, when it was handed over, who took it? Like the chain of custody is even a question there. And these are all questions that the prosecution has been unable or unwilling to answer.

And on the face of it, it does feel like they're playing games. On the other hand, it also feels like a small community prosecutor's office. Probably when they were told the FBI is going to handle this, they were like, fantastic. Just let us know. Because this is a really small community in, you know, Idaho. which isn't the most robust criminal justice system in the country anyways. Yeah, well, and there's not a lot of, they're not used to dealing with these types of crimes.

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, we could have a decision by the judge today. We could have it tomorrow. It could also be in three months. Like, we just don't know when the judge is going to decide on this DNA evidence. We also don't know, has the prosecution handed over this information? Because we don't know if they've gotten it from the FBI. And we don't know if the FBI, like, it seems weird that the FBI would be playing games

because this does it. Well, on the science part, this is, this is one of the things the FBI prides itself, right? Like, we are a scientific-based organization. Like, we have all these processes in place. This is a new technology. They're very proud to show this off. But it's kind of like peer research in the science world, right? Like, you got to show the evidence. You got to show the data and let people pour over it, have a look at it. And so far, that's just not happen. Right. It would be, I was going to, you know, it's too bad.

Like, there's no, there's no real, like, resolution to, you know, it's, it's anti-climactic at this point because you just don't know. But, um, I don't be interesting to see the, watch the, how the whole thing plays out. One, it just adds to the, you already have a horrific murder. you have an interesting suspect and now you've got a new layer of this case which is this DNA

genetic genealogy aspect that is pretty remarkable. I mean it's new it hasn't been tested in the courts and so you understand why there's such a huge media interest in this story because it ticks

every box and I think this is one of the reasons that like there's such an interest to have this televised is people are going to be glued to this one that actually happens it may not happen for two years but people are going to be glued well and then it's like i was wonder you know you've got kind of like ted bundy where it's you know he's he's innocent he's in it he's always saying he's innocent and then after he's been found guilty he's multiple times and realizes then he then he kind of starts to you know explain you know kind of kind of admit to the whole here's kind of what i would have done

done. Here's how it would have happened. You know, he kind of does that third party bullshit, you know, a little explanation. But he basically, it's like you're done. It's over. And then you've got other people who just, you know, for the next 45 years sit in prison saying, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. So, which always sucks. Right. Because, you know, having been in prison, like, I mean, hope is what gets you through it. You keep thinking you're going to, something's going to happen and they're going to let you out any day now. Like, you're going to win this. you're going to get this so that's at hope but man you know this and this is something i didn't even mention um when brian coberger was doing his master's at la salle university in criminology

one of his professors is katherine um and i'm forgetting her last name but she is the one who wrote the book she's one of the most prolific career uh criminologist in terms of writing books but she's a specialist in the BTK killer. Right. And, you know, her textbooks are used in every criminology. Her research in the serial killers is used in every criminology department. And Brian Koberger had her as a professor. Right.

And so it's not, there's no, she's gone quiet. Like she's not talking because she knew him. You know, he was not only an undergraduate at LaSalle, but he was a graduate student at LaSalle. And that's one of the better criminology programs in the country. And so there's also this, I don't want to say tie or connection because I think that probably is stretching it a little bit too far based on what we know. But there is also this link between Brian Kohlberger and some of the people who are doing the most cutting edge research into criminology and serial killers in this country. You know, one, I'm sure you already know this. like proving a murder is probably one of the hardest things to do, obviously.

You know, but I'll, listen, I'm, I'll bet he just thought he got away with it. I'll bet he felt really good. Although he had to know when the investigation, like, I think when I was reading up about this, like when he was disposing of all of these things, like there had been something in the news about his car. And so he was just, there was something where they, they had something and that's like he starts getting rid of all these things. start. So at that point, he might have, I'm sure he was worried, but I'm sure initially over the first week or so, he thought. Yeah, I mean, he was seen, um, disposing and he really did clean out his apartment in the days after he, I mean, when, when they finally searched his apartment,

it was like described as like a monk's apartment. Like, there's just nothing in there. Right. Um, and it had been thoroughly cleaned. Um, now, one of the interesting things was his license plate, because he had come from Pennsylvania, um, his, his license plate was actually Pennsylvania license plate. So at first, he wasn't even on all of the white Alontra lists. It was only as they did an expanded list and somebody from the University or Washington State University added his car, which was registered there, that they added his car in Pennsylvania plates to the list. So like, you can see, he definitely probably thought he had gotten away with it for a while. there's some speculation that the drive home where he was stopped twice by state police in

Indiana really spooked him because that is when when he's driving home for Christmas with his dad he gets stopped twice Indiana state police say that they were just random drug checks on a road now that still seems crazy that that happens once let alone twice within a short period of time. But that experience, according to the people we talked to, when he got home, that's when he starts cleaning his car furiously. Again, that's when he starts like wearing gloves everywhere and cleaning, taking out the trash and small plastic bags, putting it in his neighbors. That was all stuff that he wasn't seen doing at his home apartment in Washington after the murders, but he was seen doing at his parents' house right before he gets arrested and

following those two traffic stops he probably definitely felt pain i was going to say he probably felt pretty panic too when he when he couldn't find the um you know the sheath for the for the knife like that must have one of the victims was laying on it right so he just he he just lost it he must have but you know he also probably wanted to get out of the house as quick as possible yeah and i you know we speculate on this and this is just an educated guess but um you can see somebody who's going to use a knife. They're driving to the murder scene. If you've ever worn a knife on your belt loop, it's really not that comfortable for a long drive. Like it actually presses up against your side. So you can see whoever, let's pretend it's not Brian Coburg for a second, whoever was driving

to the scene probably carried the knife and the knife she put it on the car seat next to them with whatever else they're bringing because it's really not comfortable to wear it on their belt loop. So when he got to the site, of the murder, you know, to the house on King Road, he probably forgot to take his belt off, put it through the loop. And so that when he actually takes a knife out for the first time to kill somebody, he sets the knife sheet down. Yeah, his adrenaline had to be going nuts. Yeah, I just, well, you know, it is super odd that, like, he must have been completely wrapped up. And there's no way you don't lose your hair. I mean, even your body here, even your just hair on

you're like and you know they went through that crime scene yeah with a fine tooth comb two or three times looking for something yep so i mean even you know hair falls out constantly if there's a struggle if they're you know body hair falls out right like i'm sure they they went through and tested every single thing well that's that's one of the questions is like how much um with a background in criminology and being a i mean an actual student right of crime did he take precautions beforehand um had to. Yeah. You know, one of the roommates did see him walking out of the house, but he did not see her. And, you know, there's some speculation that this visual snow condition might have impaired his side vision. Right. It's also possible that he was in such

an adrenaline state that he was just rushing to get out of there. She opens the door. It's dark. He's, you know, he's frantic, he's trying to get out of there, that she sees him, but he doesn't see her. Because on the police report, the one roommate talks about seeing somebody with bushy eyebrows. So she saw his face, but it's dark, and he's wearing a hood or he's wearing a hat, you know, he's wearing something. And she doesn't know what just happened. Right, right. Now, the odd thing about her response and the other roommate's response is this all happens around four o'clock in the morning, the police are not alerted until about noon, 1230 later that day. So it's about eight hours go.

And even once they find the bodies, the girls, it doesn't appear that they immediately call the police, which, of course, throws the social media and the conspiracy theorists into a frenzy. Like, again, we, on the Idaho mask where we talk to people, not only criminologists, but psychologists about what are the natural responses. and like fear, flight, frozenness, those are all natural parts of, you know, anybody's reaction to a horrific event. So we just don't know what the two surviving roommates were going through mentally,

physically. We also don't know where like they drunk in the middle of the night, were they high in the middle of the night, what state they were in terms of their ability to process because they heard noises and things like that but but they didn't call the police um and you but we just don't know it was a saturday night i mean i'm not saying they were drunk or high but like it's very possible college students on a saturday night are drunk and high and that they're hearing noises they're freaking out or they they freeze and they just can't process anything um they can go they go catatonic well we'll see yeah i mean it's this this is a trial that is

very much in the early stages. You know, we don't have a trial date. We're still in the preliminary hearing stages. We have rulings on DNA. We'll have a couple other hearings on cameras and a bunch of other stuff. So there's, we have a lot of steps before we get to an actual trial,

let alone a conviction or an acquittal. Are your pot is, so you did this in several episodes, right? Yeah, it's, I believe there's 10 core episodes, where we look at all different aspects of the investigation so far. There's two bonus episodes, which are a little bit of inside baseball background stuff that IHeart likes us to do about sort of how we produce it and, you know, talking to some other people as well. But yeah, it's 10 episodes.

It's pretty in depth. I mean, we, anyone who follows the case knows there is a ton of speculation. There is a ton of conspiracy. We try to focus only on what we know for a fact. And then if there were questions, we try to bring in people who are, you know, legitimate defense attorneys or lawyers, prosecutors, or even criminologists. So, you know, I think, I hope people will find it very factual. There are other podcasts where people go off on crazy tangents. Nothing wrong with that.

Like, that's a part of what people like on podcasts. But I think we tried to focus very much on what do we know and how does it fit with what we don't know. Is it already, is it already released? Yeah, I believe we're episode seven or eight. It comes out every Wednesday. Okay, so you're still releasing them. Yeah, yeah, still releasing. I think we've got two more episodes that are left to come out.

So if you haven't listened, you know, I would, you know, point you in that direction. It can be found anywhere where you find this. Well, we'll put the links in the description box. And then when I end the podcast, I'll mention it. I'll say it again. Yeah. And it's part of the same series. is there's another series called the Pikesa Massacre,

which is about a very grisly murder of eight people in the state of Ohio. God, I wonder what, in 2018, something like that. It was one of the biggest murder investigations in the country, but it was also the biggest in Ohio's history as well. And that was the studio that I worked for, K2 Studios. They did several seasons about that family, the Wagner family. essentially they killed their cousins over custody of a baby which is what the pike damasker is all about so this is a continuation of that studios um investigation into

these sort of grisly murders and and things like that very factual very much dealing with people who knew the victims who knew the um suspects and things like that what's the other aren't you are you working on another one another yeah there's a couple um you know We sort of a steady stream of things that are coming out. Are these all the same season or are these different seasons? Different series and different seasons. So the Idaho Massacre is part of the Puyton Massacre series. This is, I think, the fifth season of that.

But instead of focusing on Piked and it's focusing on Idaho. I also worked on another one with this same group for IHeart and KT Studios called Death Island, which there's this island in Thailand, it's called Kotau, and it's a beautiful sort of island paradise. It's off in the Gulf of Thailand. It's really far out there, fantastic scuba diving. It's near Copenhang and Kosamui, the sort of party islands, you know, where people go for just to let loose. But Kotow is just a little, you know, about a half a day ferry ride where you go there to scuba dive you go there to sort of relax but it's run by a couple families because it's a really small island who have sort of a notorious background and and there was a really grisly

murder of two british backpackers named david miller and hannah witheridge in which the the Thai government first comes in the investigators these two british backpackers backpackers get killed um like with a garden hoe essentially i mean on the beach on the main party beach middle of the night they get um brutally beaten with at least a garden hoe probably several other things as well a garden hoe i thought she said a garden hose oh no no i was like what how how does that happen um there's also other distinct punctures that look like they come from a shark's tooth knife which are like a punch knife Um, and, you know, at first the, the Thai government and Thai investigators point the finger at the family who rule the island, um, their name is the Tevichian family. And they basically say the first of the lead investigator within a couple of days says, yeah, it was these guys. Um, the two, um, kids were seen partying at their bar. They've got sort of a dodgy reputation. They really run the island, um, with an iron fist. And then, um, on a dime overnight, um, um, um,

Thai investigators basically say, no, it wasn't them. They arrest two Burmese migrant workers who were working on the island who were in the area, but don't really appear to have had the physical ability to kill this British male backpacker and the female that he was with. But they convict these two Burmese migrant workers for the murder of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller. They're now sentenced to life in prison in Thailand. And the main suspects who Thai police originally pointed the finger at are free walking around on the island.

And that's just one of about 20 or so deaths on that island in the last 20 years. So that are all, are the other one solved or unsolved? Mostly unsolved. Some of them are accidents. Not that I see the Thai police making sure that they get the right guy. Right. So mostly unsolved. One of the deaths was labeled as suicide. However, she was found hanging in the woods, in the jungle of this island. And the way they found her is because there's gigantic lizards that are going up and eating her body, basically. And she was running away from a cult that she had been a part of on another island. and she was on her way home, and her luggage gets left on the boat, on the ferry. Her previous bungalow burns down on Kotow, and the Thai police just ruled this a suicide.

And so you have this island where there's been legitimate murders, where it appears that people are being framed for those legitimate murders. then you have a whole rash of unexplained deaths or you know accidents that aren't fully investigated and this has been going on for 20 years basically and that one of the most recent deaths on the island happened during COVID when a husband and wife were swimming in a pool on Kotow and they both died police blamed it on his hypertension and diabetes now how you get two deaths I was going to say and how the wife died That's a great question.

How you get two deaths in a swimming pool on Kotow that has a long history of, you know, just unexplainable deaths, how you get two deaths out of hypertension and diabetes, I don't get it. But that was the official ruling. Two people died, blamed it on his hypertension and diabetes. Now, my personal feeling is probably the pool was electrified and they probably got electrocuted in the pool. but because the Thai police don't want to hold any Thai owners accountable for anything, nor do they want to do real investigations on the island for fear of where it might lead. They just blamed it on an accident and said it was his, you know, diabetes. So death island is all about this island that has this long 20-year history of crazy deaths

about how the Thai police have bungled at least one investigation, probably bungled a whole bunch more. And then there's a whole bunch of other deaths where family and friends are like, yeah, this guy didn't die or this woman didn't die naturally. There's more to this story. So we look at this entire small little party, beautiful island paradise, which has become pretty notorious around the world for its never-ending string of crazy deaths. Is that, are those episodes out? Yeah, that's fully out. That came out about a year ago. And again, that's part of IHeart and KT Studios.

and, you know, KT, who I work with a lot, I work on other projects as well, but, you know, they, they've become really one of IHeart's go-to production companies for true crime stuff. And they've got a bunch more coming out. I don't know if you ever saw the documentary Don't F with Cats on Netflix. So, listen, I didn't, I actually didn't see it, but I don't feel I have to see it because I have a buddy um who saw it and literally talked about it for an hour i mean so i almost feel like i don't need to see it i can tell you all about how they figured out where the cat where these people were where these guys they used satellites they used you know imagery they used like he loved that

video so we have a podcast coming out with two of the subjects of that documentary two of the people who helped find the killer in that documentary um uh diana and john they are are, we have a new podcast coming out with them in two weeks called True Crimes with John and Deanna. And basically they, they work two cases. One's a cold case and one's an active case that's in the news. And the season that's coming out, I think it's second week in October, it's true crimes. That will be out on IHeart as well that I worked on. And it's basically following them as they work on these cold cases and on this one of other active case as well. to sort of apply the the dark web, the internet sleuthing techniques that they use to help

investigators. The production company that did that, was that sandpaper? The doc, the Netflix. Yeah, the Don't Fuck with Cats. I think so. I think that's the name I remember. So KT Studios is doing the podcast. But I think it was sandpaper that did the.

the original document or documentary yeah because i i had a thing they did a a sizzle reel for my story oh interesting okay didn't go anywhere um but it was like everything doesn't go anywhere until it does don't ever give up i don't that's hollywood listen i i i've realized that it ever you get nobody ever says no it's it's really just you know what i'm saying it's like you know we got to talk to we're so excited really looking forward to this is got to talk to bob oh bob's really he's into it what when we're going to talk about in the meeting next week uh we're going to talk to we got so-and-so's on vacation it's like you know so three months later you're like i'm starting to feel like maybe this isn't going to happen yeah so death island the podcast we did about this island in

in uh Thailand it started off as a tv show um it had been purchased it had been sold uh we did a sizzle reel similar experience. People were all enthusiastic. And then six months later, it was like, oh, yeah, this is not going anywhere. So we brought it back as a podcast. And, you know, we did the research. You know, we always have hope that these things will become, you know, either a documentary or a serial, you know, multi-episode program. But, you know, the nice thing about the podcast industry is you can do really quality work and get it out to a lot. of people without having to go through all of these executives and in production companies and stuff like that and i think it's part of the reason why podcasters are so successful right now is

that it's the barrier to entry the barrier to producing quality work is so much lower well i you know that let's face it it it's also timing like there's some times where like there'll be three years where they're they're all into this type of uh this type of true crime or this type of documentary and then it cools off and then three years later it's it's it's for three years you're pitching the same stuff that they were begging you for now I'm pitching you that and they're like yeah we're not interested in that anymore yeah but then three years later they come back and they're like hey remember that thing you told us about three years ago and you're like you weren't interested in that so yeah it's it's you know it's fickle and the same people that are there you know that you pitched to six months

ago they're they're not even there anymore right I mean you often find it's like the number three person at a company that you pitch something to is then calling you back three years later to say, I remember this. Like what do we think about doing this? Because the two people ahead of them have been fired or moved on. And now they're in a different position and they've moved up. It's an interesting process. I come from a background in news and journalism where you're always pitching stories to your bosses, but there's an expectation that each day or at least each week you're going to turn some story. And so, you know, your bosses sort of have to take your pitches. You know, you're employed by a company.

They need the content. And so you pitch a story or you pitch a project. And, you know, within a couple days, you have an answer and you go and do it. Whereas, like, trying to get these true crime or other projects made through the production studios and Hollywood, it's just a much longer process. And you don't ever get a no, but you also don't always get a yes. It's horrible. I'd rather deal with criminals. Yeah.

I mean, you know, they're very quick to tell you. yes or no exactly you know they make decisions right right um yeah oh yeah and i've had and i'm sure you have the same thing like i've had multiple projects where i've somebody's come to me and talked to you know the production producer with a company's talked to me and i've said oh yeah well here's well i have something kind of like that i've got this project and they're like oh wow okay that's super cool and let me see do you ever written up yeah yeah it's on my website and they read it And they come back, they was exactly what we're looking for. And what do you want for?

And I want this. And okay, great. Can we talk to the subject? Sure, no problem. I'll put you in contact with them. And then they stop returning your phone calls. And then six months later, somebody calls up and says, wow, man, I saw your thing on vice. And you go, what?

Yeah, the story. Remember the story? No. No, no. I did a pitch that device, but they didn't do anything with it. And then you go and look and they did. Well, that's particular. That reputation is very specific to Vice as well.

I mean, I've worked as a freelancer. I've worked for different media companies and stuff like that. And that was a reputation that Vice had for a lot of years. And it doesn't surprise me that the executives are walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars in their pockets while the people who work there are getting screwed and Vice is blown up in the last couple of years. You know, it's basically a bankrupt entity at this point because they did that. They did that shit all the time. Well, you know, it's funny, too, is that, so, you know, on the flip slide, like, I was, like, an expert one time that they had me come, like, you know, they had a, you know, they don't fly a crew and they hire a local crew. Yeah.

And they rented an Airbnb and brought me in and brought me in for, like, I was there, like, three hours. And they paid me, like, $3,500 for, like, three hours. And, I mean, I've got, I'm on film all of two minutes for three minutes for three hours. And I was like, this is, this is great. Yeah. You know, and the other thing eventually, they, they eventually did pay me, not what I, we'd discussed, but they did only because, you know, only because I, you know, started making waves and arguing and yelling and did a couple podcasts.

And they were like, listen, can we just quash this? Right. But most people don't have that, they don't have that luxury. Like they don't have a platform. They don't have. But yeah, it's, it's a cut throat business. And you got into this because you were in, I know I went on your website and like when I was looking into you and there's, there were all the, so I know you were like an embedded reporter, right? Is that what they call it? Yeah. I mean, I did some local news before. I, in 2009, I moved to Afghanistan. So it's the height of the financial crisis. It's the height of.

You moved to Afghanistan for what reason just. I knew that there was going to be a huge buildup of troops and that the Iraq war was sort of being wrapped up. If you remember 2008, the entire election was McCain is a hawk, Obama's a dove, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, right? Well, I was having drinks with a friend of mine who was a captain in the Marine Corps that summer. And he goes, Iraq is done. Like, whatever happens in Iraq, it's either going to work or it's not going to work. We're done. We are preparing to send 100,000 American troops to Afghanistan in 2009. And like, that kind of blew my mind.

I was like, really? Like, you don't barely think nobody's talking about this. Right. And I was a point in my career where I really wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I really wanted to cover foreign news and, you know, to go cover war, basically. And so in February, March of 2009, I sort of misled the Afghan government to get an Afghan visa. I moved to Afghanistan. And I ultimately got hired by Fox to be their Afghan correspondent and was there for four years for

Fox covering the war there. After four years of going on in beds with U.S. military troops, with Afghan troops, with British troops, and covering the war there, I moved to Jerusalem and was in Jerusalem for six years, you know, and covered sort of a little of everything from Libya, the war there to Syria, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Gaza and places like that. So, yeah, I most work on true crime stuff today, but my back. in terms of my longer professional career was very much wars, conflicts, problematic political situations around the world. But I'm okay, you did that for how long? So I was at Fox for 10 years. And then I've been, I freelance with CNN on and off for the last four years. And I was

in Ukraine. And I did a lot of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States in 2020 and stuff like that. So, I mean, I still do some of it. But, you know, the bulk of it was about 10 years overseas. So how long have you done just, have you been doing podcasts? I did my first one in 2018, 2019 was when I first started. And that was a political history one about presidential losers. It had no true crime connection. It was just interesting. It was like, it came out during the pandemic. So it, you know, nobody was listening to podcasts, unfortunately during that period of time. but it was a political history one. And it was something that I did with a friend just because I wanted to try to,

like, how do you tell stories with podcasts? Right. You know, it was a very different medium. It was a ton of fun, you know, really proud. It was called Long Shots, a political history podcast. And, yeah, that sort of opened the door to working on a whole bunch of other podcasts, a lot of true crime, but I've worked on some other stuff as well. Did you cover Ross Perrault?

We did, yeah. So we did eight episodes. We did Ross Perrault. Pat Buchanan. We did Eugene Debs, who got a million votes while in jail in 1920. I don't even know who that is. Yeah, so he was a socialist candidate. You know, so if you think about 2020, that period of time, you had Trump supporters saying, lock her up, lock her up, you know, for Hillary Clinton.

And Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president in the sort of 1912, 1916, actually did charge Eugene Debs, who was the Socialist. candidate, which at that time was a major political party in the United States, with, you know, essentially treason because he was against World War I. Through him in jail, Eugene Debs ran for president for the fourth time, I think it was, and got over a million votes in 1920 as a presidential candidate. So he's a fascinating story. I mean, it really is like if you like presidential political history, Eugene Debs was a fascinating guy, but is even more fascinating in the context that

a president literally his justice department literally did arrest in charge a presidential candidate of a major party in the country with treason chucked him in jail and the guy still got a million votes interesting yeah so it was a cool thing we talked to ross pro's son-in-law we talked to a bunch of the journalists who covered ross pro and just about their what that campaign meant to America today and like how revolutionary it was in that period of time as well. So yeah, I always like that series because it was, it was just a lot of fun. It was political history. It wasn't, you know, there was nobody was getting killed. And, you know, it was just a different series. It wasn't sort of, it was dark and depressing, but it for different reasons. Yeah. Well,

I mean, you know, like I do most, I haven't been most like almost 99.9% of all the true crime that I cover you know on my channel is like nobody's nobody dies right you know what I'm saying I'm just basically do like credit card counterfeiters or scammers or Ponzi schemes or um you know guys that sold drugs or you know that got that kind of stuff so uh because I'm not I don't you know the the gory blood and guts is just I just not I'm not interested you know they yeah I don't have much of his stomach right there's like 80 like 70 or 80 80% of the viewers for blood and guts are women. So there's a joke that I've heard a lot of people.

It's not funny, but it's like white women love stories of white women being killed. And like if you look at the demographics of true crime podcast, if you think about Friday nights with 48 hours or Dateline NBC, NBC, like those skew. I mean, it's like 70% women. And that's who listens to true crime. And it does tend to be white women. it, you know, it's not only white women, but women love stories about women being killed. And it's very sort of bizarre. But yeah, if you're not doing the gory stuff, like I'd be willing to bet most of your

viewers or listeners, right, are a lot of men who are interested in the scamming part stuff. 93% of my viewers are men. Yeah, yeah. So, definitely. And when I first started, it was like 98%. It's gotten to be, I've gotten. my my my female demographic has you know quadrupled yeah you know it's it's like 6% now um so yeah um you you know what you were going to say something i just wanted to throw this in here which i thought

was interesting um because you had the afghan thing um do you remember you know the movie war dogs yes yeah yeah so the main character played by effron played by jonahill yeah it's effron devoroli So I was incarcerated with Ephraim Deverelli. Oh, wow. And I wrote, I wrote his memoir. Interesting. It's called Once a Gun Runner. And, you know, much like the character that Jonah Hill played, you know, scoundrel, like just a really, really unpleasant individual.

And Jonah Hill made him seem soft and cuddly compared to the real person. And he basically, like, when the short version is after I wrote the story and he left prison with the manuscript, right? Like, I never heard from him again. Oh, really? Now, he did. Now, we had the same, like, I introduced him to my literary agent. And he published the book and it had my name on it. He never paid me.

his literary agent our well he died and I ended up having to sue him and I actually what's so funny is that like from Devoroli's point of view I wrote this book for him

he got it published and our only real connection was our literary agent which died and I my out date at that time was 2030 wow so he thought I thought, I don't have to worry about that guy.

You know, of course, in the meantime, I got my sentence reduced twice by 12 years. So just before I got out of prison, which was only like a year or so after like he published the book, I sued him, got out, actually convinced a literary agent, no literary agent, sorry, an intellectual property attorney to take my case on pro bono, which is impossible by that. the way and sued him and we eventually settled and we actually part of our settlement was at a strip club i mean literally we go we went to mediation it went back and forth like i can't what happened back and forth for like three hours it didn't go anywhere and then as i'm leaving going back to driving from miami back to tampa because and they imagine this i have to get permission from my probation just to go and and all the stuff that happened in between there like like when the the public book got published. I didn't even know it had been published. Last I'd heard was they were looking, they were negotiating with Simon and Schuster. And one day I'm sitting in prison and one of my buddies walks up to me. He goes, hey, bro, you making any money off that thing? I go, what? He was Devoroli's book. And I go, no, they haven't published it yet. He is, what are you talking about? He opens up a magazine, a big glossy magazine. There's Devoroli with like 50 or 60 or like 100 books behind him holding his book at the Miami Book Fair. Wow. And I'm like, what? What? What? You know?

So like, that's what happened. And he already had blown me off. But I was still talking to the literary agent. So anyway, I end up when I was leaving Miami to come back after our mediation fell apart, I got a phone call saying, hey, meet us for my lawyer. Meet us at the Pink Pony. Demeroli and his lawyer got to meet us here. They just called.

Of course. He wants a deal. And I'm like, well, what do you? I got like a four hour drive. It's already like six o'clock at night. Like, what are you doing? And I can't, I, my, I'm going to get thrown back in prison. Like, I got to be home tonight.

I drove there and we argued and negotiated and, you know, so he ends up, we ended up settling. But it's such, it's so funny because how that whole thing happened is so comical. I mean, I haven't read the book, but, you know, the movie is a historic, like a hysterical sort of sequence of events. Yeah, that we don't even know about like. your back end, which is like how the book gets made and how like, that's a whole other thing. Oh, I was going to say part, well, the, you know, it's funny. Not that I expect you to read it, but like I actually have like a, a 9,000 word version. So I actually wrote a book on it.

Wow. It's called dude, where's my hand grenade? Because it's funny because, and that that came out because when I had met Devereoli in prison, I was like, I'd read the Rolling Stone article. about he and David Packow's yeah and I said to and I I so I went and went to he just like I read it and then like two weeks later he showed up at the prison and I was already writing true crime stories right like I was already kind of wanted to start doing that because I just finished my memoir was finishing it and one of my buddies said hey you know that article I gave you about that gun guy

and I was like right he said he's here you need to go talk to him and I was like why and he and he said he goes because he said he's got a great story and I was like yeah but he's got a lot of money. He could hire somebody. And so I went and I talked to him and said, hey, my name's Matt. And I talked to him and said, you know, I don't know if you're thinking about doing a memoir. And he was like, man, I'm ADHD. I'm bipolar. He's like, there's no way I'm going to be I can't. There's no way I could focus that long. Well, if you want any help, I'd be willing to help you write an outline. It's a great story. And I said, you could probably get a professional writer to write it on the on the street. And he goes, well, he's, I'll think about it.

And so as time went by, like two weeks later, I would be walking on the compound we have something called controlled moves where they they open like the unit the housing unit where you sleep they open it for like 10 minutes so they open the doors and you have like 10 minutes to walk across the compound which is roughly the size of maybe a city block or two to you know so if you want to go to the rec yard they open the doors every hour and they open the doors for 10 minutes so you have to kind of race across the compound to get to the wreck yard or to get to the library or to go to medical or the chow hall. Whatever. So we would see each other constantly. We'd be passing. We'd pass right by each other. And I'd look up and see him and he go, I'm still thinking about it. And I had to go, all right. And I just keep walking because he was really obnoxious. So one day, I remember I was walking and he stopped me. And he goes, hey, bro. And I said, yeah, what's up? He said, you know that the Rolling Stone article? I keep in mind, the Rolling Stone article that was written about him was called Arms and the Dudes. And it was written from David Packow's point of view. So the interview was with David Packow's. Okay. So as I'm walking by him, he goes, you know, the, you know, that article, I was like, right.

He said, it got sold. He said, those guys, Todd Phillips, they picked it up. And I was like, okay, he said, I go, who's that? I said, he goes, the guys that make the hangover movies. And I went, he said, yeah, they're going to make a movie about it. He said, pretty cool, right? And I went, wow, bro. I said, listen, I said, you seem like a smart guy.

I said, let's be honest. I said, have you watched those movies? And he goes, yeah. I said, right, don't you have to, aren't you leaving here in a couple of years? He goes, yeah. And I said, aren't you going to go back into business? And he goes, yeah. And I went, do you understand these guys are going to make a movie about you where you're a joke?

I said, you're going to be a punchline. I said, you're going to be Spicoli from fast times at Ridgemont High. Good point. And I said, I said, and they're going to name the movie, dude, where's my hand grenade? And you're going to be a punchline. I said, and you actually have an opportunity now to write an outline and get your version out there. I said, and you can't take a couple hours a week to meet me to write an outline? I said, you were way ahead of this thing.

Yeah. And he was like, you should, he was like, bro, when can we start? When can we start? I met the light bulb went off, right? Right. So, so then we wrote, I wrote the outline when I was done writing the outline. He'd read my book by that point. I'd given him my, he said, can I read your manuscript?

I said, sure. So I gave it to him a couple days later, came back. He said, bro, I want you to write my book. That's awesome. And he goes, can I ask? How do you write a book in prison? Do you have access to a computer? Are you doing it on a floppy drive?

You have a, like, piece of paper? Like, how are you doing it? Slowly. So listen, here's here, you don't have access to a, really you don't really have access so right you don't have access to the internet or anything what you have access to is it's called core links so it's a way to email your family but really you're sending an email to to a to like a website and then they can check the website to read yours and then they can write a letter or an email back to you and then you can check so

there's no you're not really emailing them directly right there's a wall basically yes so what happens is they allow you to store drafts for like 60 days so I can write a letter to you and it's only you only got like right I want to say whatever 1200 characters or I forget what it was 12,000 characters so it they fill up so what I did was I wrote everything on a yellow legal stuff paper that I could buy at the commissary I then typed it out and keep in mind every time you're on that system, it's charging you. So then I'd type it out into, into a draft. And I would save it. So it'd be like chapter one A, chapter two B or chapter one B, chapter one C, chapter two A chapter. And I'd write it out. I'd print it out. I'd give it to people that I, that could read

it for me and, you know, try and help me edit it, you know, clean it out. Because there's no, there's no word processing ability. It doesn't tell you that, hey, you spelled you spelled that word wrong so these guys would read it and keep in mind you there's a lot of smart guys in at Coleman like we had like we had I think we had two or three guys from NASA you know I mean these are these are sharp individuals so I mean there's a lot of morons too so but they would read it and I'd edit it and print it out and reedit it and print it out and then eventually you just email all those things to I would email them to my literary agent he would put it together in a word document

mail it back to me I edit it again so it is a huge process yeah I had a ton of time though I was going to say you have the time but that's a lot of like that you got to sit and do that a lot of people have time and they don't use it well I was going to say but I listen my my time so for the first I didn't start writing for about three years but once I started writing it just blew by the time like I I had you know I had purpose And you know, life is, you know, it's about having a purpose. Right. You really want to be happy.

And that gave me a purpose where I was like, okay, I'm incarcerated. One, I should be incarcerated. I got myself here. But what am I going to do? Like, I don't want to learn how to play the guitar. Right. I don't want to, I don't want to learn how to, you know, be a culinary, you know, a chef or what, you know, culinary arts or whatever.

They, they had a couple programs. Like, there wasn't a lot there that I, you know, I don't place, I don't want to be on the, the basketball team. I'm five foot six. It's embarrassing. Um, you know, so there's there's just like that's it. So what do you do? So I thought, what do I have a ton of, which is there's true crime stories everywhere. And, and these guys can't write their own stories. I'm not saying that they're not smart enough, but the truth is if it's difficult, it is easier for me to write a story about you than it is about me. Yeah, definitely. You know that. You just don't see yourself how you, how you truly are, how other people see you. And that's difficult.

So I started kind of after I wrote my story and then I wrote Devereux Roles and then I wrote I wrote this another kid's story got I got him in Rolling Stone magazine and you know so then it really got around like it was spreading everywhere. So then every day people are coming to me saying hey bro, I'd love to tell you my story. Do you have time? And I'd be like, well, I'll be at the library tomorrow. You come and talk to me. And so it was like every other day I'm getting people coming to me and I'm listening to their stories. And it's like. like, you know, like, that's a good story, but it's pretty common. You know, you have a lot of stories that are common. Like it's, you know, a lot of them are just almost tragic. Yeah. And so if they had something unique, then maybe I could, I would write like a synopsis on them. Um, and I ended up writing like 22 or 23 stories, synopsies. And I probably wrote like, I think I wrote like four books while I was there, four or five

books while I was incarcerated. and another couple that three that I turned into books when I got out really they were already kind of written right I just you know I really just it sounds so funny because as as my release date was getting closer I was like man there's just not enough time you know those guys are like are you not gonna have enough time on the street to finish this and they're like you've got you get to get your, you need to get your priority straight. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so I, you know, I wrote those and, and, and I put them on, you know, I've got most

of them on a website and I, they're on Amazon and I did all that. And I just actually turned that one, dude, where's my hand grenade, into a book? Only because, you know, so much of it was really kind of already written in a way. Right. Well, I wrote a whole, it sounds boring, but it's actually super interesting. interesting because you know most of it takes place in prison it's like how this was done from in prison and and I basically initially I kind of tell a short version of how Devoroli's story and my story while I was doing this he was doing this while I was doing this he was doing that and then how it kind of comes together and really honestly about it turned out that Devoroli and the literary agent really had me write that story to put themselves in a position to sue Warner Brothers. And I, and I, I knew that's, they, they talked about it.

You know, I was just excited to be a part of writing this story, but, and they kept talking about suing for intellectual property if they make the movie. And I was like, yeah, but you don't really have a right to do that because they're making the movie based on the article that was written in Rolling Stone magazine. Right. And that's, that's Packhouse's version. And so my literary agent had sued before for theft of intellectual property that they didn't really steal but it was a competing project and he's like it's not all you have to he's like alleging it is enough you got to pay the piper though you got it you can't like if it's competing projects still got to get paid right so that's really what he did he was like you've got it we got to get it out

first we have to get this you have to make sure you incorporate all of what's in the article so that you see what's saying he had this whole thing And it was like, and I was like, why are we talking about this? I thought we're going to get a publishing deal. He's like, yeah, but just in case. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm not concerned about that. So eventually I find out that that was all they ever really cared about putting.

And they did. He sued Warner Brothers when he got out and he got a payday. And, you know, but then he all still didn't pay me. Like, you still didn't pay me because he still, you know, and then suddenly I'd get out and I've hired an attorney or I'm suing him. And, but yeah, it was interesting how the whole thing. You know, the literary agent literally died the night that Warner Brothers, they went to mediation and they made a deal. Wow. And he died that night.

I mean, there's a dark comedy there if you want to pursue that. Oh, it's, it's, everybody that has read it has just been like, this is like, yeah, this is over, one thing after another that happened in that whole. And everybody involved in it is, is a character. You meet some real characters in prison. I, you know, I think characters are what drives stories more than plots. And, you know, prison is a great place. If you look at how many just crime stories come out of like prison time and stuff like that, there's so many good characters because you can't end up in that place without doing some

unnormal odd behavior, right? Oh, yeah. That's what makes for a great character. character. Well, that's what I would say about like narcissists and people get so upset about, you know, this company is run by a, he's a psychopath or he's a narcissist or he's, I'm like, yeah, I get it. But normal people don't reach that pinnacle because they don't make those leaps. They're not, they can't act super confident and be super confident because they have a natural ability to be cautious and not over promise and not. So, you know, those people either end up highly successful or incarcerated. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, either they end up become president or thing. But yeah, you, I'm going to, look, I'll shoot you. I have a short version.

I have like an 8,000 word version. I mean, not that I expect you to read it, but I'm going to shoot it to you just in case. No, I'd love to. I'd love to check it out. But yeah, if you're ever, if you're ever lacking in ideas, like, I got like 20-something stories that would make great podcasts. We'll talk more.

I've got some people who I do other projects with that are, always looking for ideas and I'm always happy to bring them stuff so cool yeah definitely I mean as you know like finding interesting stories you never know it's going to work on any given moment but the more interesting stories that you are working on the better chance you have of getting something made yeah no definitely um and like well you're just like you were saying you know it's fun yeah like the fact that I'm making a living doing YouTube is just just killed me I think it's fantastic Listen, I was just at a big podcast conference a couple weeks ago in Denver. And the big thing is podcasters trying to move into YouTube.

And, you know, what I said, when I was talking to people, I said, I think it's way easier if you're already doing YouTube to move into podcasting than it is the other direction. I said because a lot of people who are doing podcasts and aren't thinking about your screen. They're not thinking about the lighting. They're not thinking about your backdrop. They're not thinking about the way you carry yourself on screen. and, you know, your movements on all these things. But, like, if you're doing YouTube, all you're worrying about, you've already done all that stuff, right? Right.

It's way easier to go from YouTube to podcasting and podcasting to YouTube, because you've already done everything, you know, the hard parts, I think, in terms of the setup and the lighting and the microphone. But it's a big thing right now. So if you're doing it, you're way ahead of the game because you can chop it up two different directions, whereas most podcasters aren't. thinking about video yet, but they want to try to think about video. Right. And, you know, their minds aren't there and a lot of them are just audio people. Well, it's funny too because typically, unlike you who you actually know what you're doing, would typically you'd be shocked how many times I get someone on a remote podcast and I'm like,

can you move over? Can you push the camera closer to you? Okay, lower yourself, but you know, you started off in exactly this one. one spot like oh he's good you know no i mean i you know one i i've worked in tv i work in tv production you know i i have a sense of it anyways but i i will tell you um the pandemic improved that a whole lot because i did my first podcast um long shots before the pandemic hit it came out during the pandemic we did all the interviews and a lot of i of people i was interviewing were older reporters or political campaign consultants you know worked on ross pro or jesse jackson

and stuff like that. And trying to get them to set up a microphone and press record and to do this, right? Right. So impossible. I mean, I literally spent hours with people before we got to interviews trying to get them to set it up. Post-pandemic, not everybody,

but everyone has a better sense. And most people now have a good sense of like, okay, I need a little bit of light, I need a microphone, you know, oh, I just need to click this button, I also need to check my audio levels. The pandemic did make this type of thing way easier, because grandmas and grandpas and business band who never did this,

they've been forced to interact with these types of platforms and microphones. So it is better than it used to be, at least from the things I do. But just even a couple years ago, I'd be interviewing people in the background would be a mess or the people would be like doing dishes in the background. I'm like, can we just have a little quiet? Right. I'm staring at some guy's bed with a mound of a mound of dirt.

already clothes on it. It's like, what are you thinking? Like, I know you can see yourself. Yeah, yeah. But I don't even think that that's not really the picture they want to put out to the world. Yeah. All right. Can you think of anything we didn't cover or? No, I think we cover a lot. Yeah. Anything you want to cover anything additional? No, no, I think it's fantastic. I enjoyed it. I hope you, I hope it is what you were looking for. Yeah, yeah. No, it is. And I'll put, you know, we'll put the, if you send me the link to the podcast, then I'll, I'll do that. Yeah, fantastic. I work on a ton of projects as well.

It's good to have connected with you because, you know, I don't know ever what's going to come up, but I'll definitely keep you in mind for other projects, you know, if we need interviews, you know, for things like that as well. So. Yeah, definitely. I appreciate it. Hey, if you, if you like the interview, please do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this leave me a comment and i'm going to

try and be more interactive in the comment section because i've been slipping but i'm working on it the description box for connor's uh links to his podcast and i really appreciate you guys watching thank you very much and please consider joining my patreon see you