Murder: True Crime Stories - SOLVED: The Idaho College Murders 2

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

In the gripping conclusion of this two-part series, Murder: True Crime Stories follows the intense investigation that led authorities from scattered surveillance footage and a single DNA trace on a knife sheath to an unexpected suspect: criminology PhD student Bryan Kohberger. Carter Roy breaks down how digital forensics, cell-phone data, and genetic genealogy converged to identify the killer—and how families, investigators, and an entire community sought justice in the aftermath. Even with a guilty plea and multiple life sentences, unanswered questions remain about motive, intent, and the chilling months Kohberger spent stalking the victims. This episode examines the pursuit of closure when the truth may never fully come. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Murder True Crime Stories to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Killer Minds, Crime House Daily and Crimes and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays, we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now. on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before. cases have finally been solved, even those that seem too far gone. It's a huge step

in the right direction. But there are still some things technology can't do. After four college students were brutally murdered in Moscow, Idaho in the fall of 2022, police used genetic genealogy to narrow in on a killer. For the victim's families, this was a double-edged sword. They knew who was responsible for the attacks, but even with a positive ID, police couldn't force the killer to confess, which meant that no matter how much the families wanted an explanation, they might never get one. And living without that knowledge was almost as difficult as living without their loved ones. People's lives are like a story.

There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories, the Crime House original powered by Pave Studios that comes out every Tuesday, and Thursday. Crime House is made possible by you.

Follow murder, true crime stories, and subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts for ad-free early access to each two-part series. This is the second of two episodes on the Idaho College murders. In the fall of 2022, four students were found brutally stabbed inside their off-campus home. Their names were Madison Mogan. Kaylee Gonzalez, Zana Karnodl, and Ethan Chapin. Last time, I introduced you to the victims and walked you through the hours leading up to their deaths. In the early morning hours of November 13th, an intruder broke into their house on King Road.

Six students were there that night, but only two made it out alive. Today, I'll take you along as we follow the investigation, thanks to multiple surveillance videos, local authorities were able to hone in on a suspect, one who had been hiding in plain sight. But even with a killer in custody and a guilty verdict, there are still plenty of lingering questions that may never be answered. All that and more coming up. On November 13th, 2022, Madison Mogan, Kali Gonzalez, Zanernerker Nodal, and Ethan Chapin were found, brutally stabbed inside their home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. They were between the ages of 20 and 21 and all students at the University of Idaho. The three girls lived at the property while Ethan, Zana's boyfriend, had been spending the night.

Two roommates, Bethany Funk and Dylan Mortensen, survived the attack, which occurred just after 4 a.m. Dylan even saw the intruder as he was leaving. Once police arrived on the scene, hours later, her witness testimony became a focal point of the investigation, and that wasn't the only piece of evidence the authorities had. Another was a suspicious car spotted near the house. A white Hyundai Allantra, though detectives still weren't sure about the year. Footage from the neighbor's surveillance cameras caught it circling the area, perhaps casing the house. Then there was the knife sheath found beside Maddie and Kaylee in the upstairs bedroom. A small trace of DNA had been recovered from the button snap.

It didn't match anyone in existing databases, so authorities sent it off for further analysis. They would hold on to it until there was something or someone to compare the DNA to. The forensic team also uncovered a shoe print outside of Dylan's bedroom door. It had a repeating diamond-shaped pattern, similar to what you'd find in the soul of a vans-type shoe. It was directly in the path. Dylan had described the intruder taking as he left the house, so it seemed like it was the killer's footprint. Investigators had a few puzzle pieces to work with, but they couldn't see the big picture yet.

They believe that Maddie had been a target. The killer had gone into her room first, where she and Kaylee had fallen asleep together. It wasn't clear if Kaylee was collateral damage or if the murderer had always planned on killing her as well. The same went for Zana. It was possible the killer only went after her because she'd come out into the hallway after hearing the commotion upstairs. It would make sense if he had been trying to get rid of witnesses. But it still didn't explain why he targeted Ethan, too.

He was asleep in Zana's bed at the time. No one could make sense of the killer's motives. The victim's family and friends were left shocked and confused, and in the following days, they didn't get any more clarity, not even when the autopsy reports came out. On November 16th, three days after the murders, the medical examiner confirmed that all four had been stabbed multiple times. Some bore defensive wounds,

which suggested they were awake at the time of the attack and fought back. The others who didn't have defensive wounds were likely asleep when they were killed. There was no evidence of sexual assault. just the stab wounds. These details only deepened the mystery. Clearly the killer had fixated on these particular students, but why? Detectives began canvassing local stores, asking if anyone had recently purchased a knife that would fit the sheath they'd found. They scoured dumpsters near King Road, looking for evidence, but came up empty. Meanwhile, the governor of Idaho allocated up to $1 million in state emergency funds to support the ongoing investigation.

By then, the crime was national news and the tips were pouring in. Detectives received thousands of calls and emails from across the country, most led nowhere, but investigators tried to follow everyone. Then a tip came in that stood out. On November 29th, 16 days after the murders, a Washington State University police officer called the Moscow PD. He had been working on the university's Pullman campus, just 10 miles west of Moscow, when he spotted a white Hyundai Alantra, the same type of car that had been spotted circling King Road. It was registered to a 28-year-old Ph.D. student named Brian Co. Koeberger, who was studying criminology.

The Moscow police ran Koberger's driver's license. They noticed that his photo matched Dylan's description of the masked man she saw. He had an athletic build, was about 5, 10, and had bushy eyebrows. They also discovered that Koberger had recently changed his license plates. He had been pulled over in August while driving a white Hyundai Alantra. At the time, he had Pennsylvania plates, which were set to expire on November 30th. He'd gotten new Washington plates on November 18th, just five days after the murders. It could have been a coincidence.

His plates were set to expire, or it could have been an attempt to cover his tracks. Detectives filed a warrant for Coburger's phone records. They wanted to build a profile in CFE. had any connection to the murdered Idaho students. At the same time, though, they continued to chase every credible lead. They didn't want to get tunnel vision until they had clear evidence pointing to the killer. It was a good strategy, and the problem was they couldn't tell the community about it. If they did, Koeberger could get spooked and try to flee or destroy evidence. But as the weeks dragged on, the lack of arrests and information created another

issue. The murders hadn't just shocked Moscow. They shocked the entire country, and it seemed like everyone had an opinion about what happened. Armed-chair detectives began trading theories online. First, there was Dylan and Bethany, the surviving roommates. People wondered why They waited so long to call 911. The attacks took place around 4 a.m., but the police weren't notified until nearly noon. Some even accused the girls of being involved. Then there was the guy in the hoodie. Kaylee and Maddie had stopped at a food truck called the Grub truck around 1.30 a.m. on

November 13th. The Grub truck live streamed their late night rush, and the video of Kaylee and Maddie ordering food had gone viral after it was posted on TikTok. The video showed a man in a hoodie speaking to them for a few moments. Soon after the murders, other students recognized the guy. He was a student in a fraternity. People quickly began accusing him of being the murderer. Similarly, the Uber driver who took Kaylee and Maddie home that night came under suspicion. So did the DoorDash driver who had delivered food to Zana just after 4 a.m., only minutes before her murder. These theories were understandable, but dangerous. Desperate for answers, the public was scrutinizing

innocent people who had absolutely no involvement in the case. So on December 12th, almost a month since the murders, the Moscow Police Department released a statement. The grub truck guy, the Uber and DoorDash drivers, Dylan and Bethany, and several other people who had been accused, were all cleared of any involvement. The Moscow community was grateful for the clarity, but the relief was short-lived. Citizens wanted to know who did this, and they wanted that person off their streets. Behind the scenes, investigators were getting closer. They had a strong hunch about their suspect, but they needed more evidence to ensure the charges stuck. Publicly, all they said was that they were looking for the driver of a white 2011-2012 or 2013 Hyundai Allantra.

They didn't know that the person they were searching for was having his own run in with the law several states away in Indiana. Just a few days after the Moscow police's statement on December 15th, Brian Coburger and his father were driving home to Pennsylvania for the holidays. That day, Coburger was pulled over twice in Indiana, once by a sheriff's deputy for speeding, and then less than 10 minutes later by a state trooper for following the car in front of him too closely. In both cases, he was let go with a warning. At the time, no law enforcement alerts had been issued linking his vehicle or name to the Moscow investigation, so the Indiana officers had no idea they'd just come face to face with a murder suspect. But when the Moscow police finally got Coburger's cell phone data a few days later, they found more than enough evidence. Not only did that information point to him being the killer,

But it also showed that he'd been planning this attack for months. A month after the murders of Kaylee Gonzalez, Madison Mogan, Zanakernodal, and Ethan Chapin, authorities were narrowing in on a suspect. They believed 28-year-old Brian Coburger was the killer. They just needed hard proof. At the end of December, almost a month and a half after the murders, Corporal Brett Payne from the Moscow Police Department

finally got a search warrant for Koberger's cell phone records, and the data was very telling. On the night of the murders, Coburgers' phone had traveled from Pullman, Washington toward Moscow, Idaho 10 miles away, but then at 2.47 a.m., it was powered off for roughly two hours. At 4.48 a.m., the phone came back online. By then, it was heading away from Moscow back toward Pullman. Later that morning, the phone pinged again in Moscow, right near the King

Road house. It seemed like Coburger had returned to the scene, maybe to see what was happening, or to retrieve something he'd left behind. Something. like a knife sheath. Coburger's phone had also been in Moscow near the victim's house at least 12 times before the murders. The pings in the area started back in August, three months earlier. To Payne and his fellow investigators, it looked like Coburger had been casing the house. They still didn't know why that house or why those kids, but it looked like he'd been stalking them for months. As the evidence mounted, the FBI quietly began surveilling Coburger at his family

home in Pennsylvania. On December 27th, agents collected trash from outside the residence and managed to find a used Q-tip. They sent it off for DNA testing. When the results came back, they were clear. Whoever left the DNA on the knife sheath at the crime scene was a close relation. They were the biological son of whoever used the Q-tip. In other words, the killer's father had used the Q-tip. It confirmed through the same kind of genetic genealogy that helped catch the Golden State killer that the DNA on the sheath belonged to Brian Coburger. At around 3 in the morning, on December 30th, 2022, Forty members of the Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team surrounded the Coburger family home.

It had been more than six weeks since the murders of Kaylee, Maddie, Zana, and Ethan. Brian Coburger had driven across the country just before Christmas. His white Hyundai Alantra, the same car police had spent weeks tracking, was parked in the driveway outside. The SWAT team blew through the Coburger's front door. They thought the occupants would all be asleep, but they found 28-year-old Coburger in the kitchen, wearing latex gloves. He was methodically sealing his trash into separate ziplocks apart from the rest of the family's garbage. After all, he was a criminology student.

He knew his DNA could give him away, but apparently he didn't realize his father. DNA could too. As the SWAT team zip tied Koberger's wrists, he started speaking to them as if they were guest lectures at one of his classes. First, he asked whether anyone else had been arrested. Then he spoke to one of them about being a criminology student. He even suggested they get a coffee after all of this. He was stunningly calm about the arrest and didn't seem to have any remorse or any emotion, really. The SWAT officers didn't engage with him. They just put him in the back of a police car

and took him down to the station. Coburger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. Within days, FBI agents began the process of extraditing him back to Idaho to face trial. On January 4, 2003, Coburger was escorted onto a police air aircraft in Pennsylvania. When he landed in Moscow, reporters lined the streets waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Cameras followed his every move. To many, it felt like the story was finally

reaching an end. But the more people learned about Brian Coburger, the stranger and darker the picture became. Brian Coburgerger grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, as a teenager he was quiet, awkward, and often kept to himself. Classmates said he could be unpredictable and sometimes started fights without warning. He also struggled with visual snow, a neurological condition where a person's vision is obscured by scattering dots. It isn't a well-studied condition, but according to some neurologists, it can be debilitating. And there's no direct causation between visual snow and mental illness, But one research team found that people who experience visual snow also reported high levels of anxiety, depression, and depersonalization.

This was true for Koberger. He claimed he developed visual snow around the same time. He noticed his lack of emotions. When Koberger was 16, he wrote about feeling detached from reality in an online forum, like he was trapped inside his own body watching life unfold through a screen he felt little emotion or remorse and he struggled to connect with anyone at all it only got worse when he added drugs to the mix coburgers started using heroin in high school when he was deeply depressed and suicidal at some point it seemed like he got a handle on his visual snow but the heroin use didn't stop

His father sent him to rehab more than once until eventually Coburger claimed he'd gotten clean. By his mid-20s, Coburger seemed to have turned things around. He was studying psychology at DeSales University, a small Catholic school in Pennsylvania. During that time, he became fascinated with the criminal mind in particular. He wanted to understand what made people commit violent acts. He even told a friend that he hoped to work with high-profile offenders one day. He earned his bachelor's degree in 2020, then went on to a master's program, also at DeSales.

As a graduate student, he was known for being meticulous, highly analytical, and deeply focused on methodology and data. He was especially interested in collecting data about violent criminals. For example, in the months before the Idaho murders, he posted a survey on Reddit. He introduced himself as a student investigator working with two professors at DeSales. He wanted to find former inmates who would be willing to answer some questions. In the survey, he asked them to describe their, quote, thoughts, emotions, and actions from the beginning to end of the crime commission process. At the time, it sounded academic, but in hindsight, it read like something else entirely,

a step-by-step guide to committing a crime. Even so, Koberger did so well in his graduate program that one of his professors recommended him for a Ph.D. in criminal justice at Washington State University. Coburger was accepted and moved to Pullman in the fall of 2022. The campus was about 10 miles away from the University of Idaho in Moscow. At Washington State, he began pursuing a doctorate in criminology. He also worked as a teacher's assistant, grading papers and teaching undergraduate courses. Classmates later said he was brilliant, but strange.

He didn't go to parties or socialized. He seemed mechanical, like he was observing people rather than engaging with them. Just days before the murders, Koberger had been unusually animated during a discussion about forensics and how prosecutors use DNA evidence to win convictions, or alternatively, how they could lose if there was no DNA left behind. It must have seemed obvious to his peers. Of course, prosecutors needed evidence. That wasn't really a hot take. But in retrospect, it seemed like Koberger was speaking to himself.

Because by that point, he'd already been casing the house on King Road. And if he wanted to get away with murder, he had to make sure it went off without a hitch. A few days later on November 13, 2012, Coburger drove to Moscow in the middle of the nights and crept into the King Roadhouse around 4 a.m. He fatally stabbed Kaylee, Maddie, Zana, and Ethan. Then he drove back to Pullman as if nothing had happened. In the days that followed, Coburger continued to go to class and great papers. The semester came to a close without the police even questioning Coburger.

He must have thought he was in the clear. So he drove back home to Pennsylvania for the holidays without a care in the world. He didn't know that FBI agents had started surveilling him and that by the end of December, they would have enough evidence to arrest him. Five months after Coburger was extradited to Idaho, he appeared in court for his arraignment. When the judge asked for his plea, Coburger stood silent. by law, that meant the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

The four first-degree murder charges made him eligible for the death penalty. But his lawyers would spend the next months fighting to take that off the table. And as the case made its way through the courts, the focus in Moscow shifted to a different kind of battle for closure. The owner of 1122 King Road, the house where the man, murders had occurred, donated the rental to the University of Idaho. The school then announced plans to tear it down. Plenty of people in the community cheered the decision, but not everyone agreed. Kaley Gonzalez and Xanacronotel's families were adamantly opposed. They argued that tearing

it down could destroy one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the case, and they were doing it before a trial date had even been set. The university president Scott Green responded with a statement that read, quote, while we appreciate the emotional connection some family members of the victims may have to this house, it is time for its removal and to allow the collective healing of our community to continue. It was a bold move to prioritize collective healing over the victim's family's wishes. And despite their protests, the plan went forward. On November 28, 2003, just over a year after the murders, the demolition began.

At sunrise, heavy machinery clawed through the walls of the house, tearing it down to its foundation. Less than two hours later, the King Roadhouse was gone. For some, it was a symbol of healing, but for others, it felt like erasing. the truth before justice had even been served. The case against Brian Coburger moved slowly through Idaho's courts. In September 24, nearly two years after the murders, a judge ruled that Coburger's trial would be moved out of Lodda County, where the crime took place. The local media had been publicizing the case non-stop, and the judge believed Coburger wouldn't get a fair trial, so it was moved to Boise, nearly 300 miles away.

Courts tend to move slowly, especially in death penalty cases, but this one kept getting delayed. Coburger's trial had originally been scheduled for June 2025, but it was pushed back two months to August. During that time, Koberger's defense team filed motion after motion on his behalf. They challenged the DNA evidence. They asked the court to consider his mental health. And perhaps most importantly, they sought to take the death penalty off the table. Koberger's lawyers revealed that he'd been diagnosed with a form of autism. They argued that pursuing the death penalty would violate a Supreme Court ruling from 2002.

that ban states from executing anyone with an intellectual disability. However, autism is considered a developmental disability, not an intellectual one. Still, Coburger's lawyers tried to argue that his diagnosis should be treated similarly. The judge denied that request. When that didn't work, the defense tried to suppress the DNA evidence. They argued that the genetic genealogy technique used to match Coburger. D.N.A. to the knife sheath had been unconstitutional. The judge denied that, too. The evidence would stand. The back and forth seemed never ending, but then just weeks before the long-awaited

trial, the proceeding suddenly went into hyper-speed. In return for dropping the death penalty, Koberger agreed to plead guilty. The plea deal wasn't entirely unexpected. It was no secret that Koberger wanted to avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors had even met privately with victims' families to prepare them for the decision, and they believed it was the surest path to justice, a way to guarantee Koberger would never walk free again. Madison Mogan and Ethan Chapin's family supported the idea, but Kaley Gonzalez's family felt blindsided,

mostly because they still didn't know why Kohlberger had done what he did. They needed that information to make sense of their daughter's death and find closure, but this deal meant they never would. On July 2nd, 2025, Brian Koberger, now 30, returned to court. For the first time since his arrest, he spoke briefly. when the judge read each victim's name, Kaylee Gonzalez, Madison, Mogan, Zana Kernodal, Ethan Chapin, he was asked the same question, did you murder this person? Each time, Koberger replied, yes, he was guilty.

His voice never changed and his face remained expressionless. According to his defense attorneys, that flat effect. was a symptom of his autism. For many in the room, though, it seemed like he simply lacked any remorse for what he'd done. Three weeks later came the sentencing. The families of the four students faced Coburger one final time, giving victim impact statements. Kaylee's sister, Olivia, looked him right in the eye and said, quote, my sister Kaylee and her best friend Maddie were not yours to take they were not yours to study to stalk or to silence there everything you could never be loved accepted vibrant accomplished brave and powerful zana's aunt took a different approach

she told coburger that she could no longer live with the hate she felt for him and so she forgave him she said that if he ever wanted to tell her what had happened that night why he'd done what he did she would listen Dylan Mortensen one of these surviving roommates sobbed as she spoke she described her panic attacks how she sometimes dropped to the floor her heart racing as she relive that day over and over again she said that he took away her ability to trust the world around her. She said, quote, what he did shattered me in places I didn't know could break. As each person spoke, Coburger sat silent, and when he was given the chance to respond, he declined to speak. With that, the case was officially closed. Coburger was sentenced to four

consecutive life sentences, plus 10 years as outlined in the plea deal, he would not live to see the outside of a prison ever again. But even though justice had been served, there were still so many questions. The murder weapon was never found. Coburger's motive was never revealed, and police still don't know which of the students, if any, was the intended target. In the absence of a clear motive, theories have filled the gaps. Some believe Coburger studied criminology not to understand criminals, but to become one. At DeSales University, classmates remembered how we fixated on violent offenders asking about their emotions, motives, and how they felt before and after killing. Others point to something darker. The possibility that Coburger

identified with the in-cell community, short for involuntary celibate. It's a movement of men who feel rejected by women and turn that resentment into hatred and violence toward them. The group's most infamous figure, Elliot Roger, killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2014. He targeted a sorority house of women who he felt had redacted. objected him. At DeSales, students recalled Coburger studying Roger's case closely. He seemed fascinated by it. And according to Liz Garbis, co-director of the docu-series one night in Idaho, it did seem like either Maddie or Kaylee were the intended victims of Coburger's rampage. Coburger went straight to their room

and they were the first ones killed some theorized that maybe Coburger had crossed paths with one or both of them before the murders maybe he had felt rejected by them or maybe he just became obsessed it was hard to say but Coburger may have left some clues

behind online Before Koberger's arrest, thousands of internet sleuth gathered in Facebook groups trading theories about the case. But one user in particular stood out. He went by the name Papa Rogers. His profile picture was an old sepia-toned photo of a soldier, and his posts were odd. He asked questions about how the killer might have held the knife, which hands. which grip. He even mentioned the knife sheath before that was public knowledge. And for some reason, he kept saying that the white Hyundai Allantra was a red herring. Then Coburger was arrested,

and when the Facebook group's administrators saw his photo chills went down their spines, the resemblance between Coburger and Papa Rogers' profile pick was uncanny. And the username sounded like reference to Elliot Rogers, the UCSB shooter. Most suspicious of all, once Coburger was arrested, Papa Rogers never made another post in the group. Authorities later said they found no evidence linking the account to Coburger, but many still believe it was him that he'd been trying to insert himself into the investigation. Even with a conviction, there's something unsatisfying about this case.

Koberger never gave a confession or any kind of explanation. And for the families, friends, and even the online sluice, that missing piece is incredibly hard to reconcile. We want answers. We believe that if we can make sense of crimes like this, we can protect ourselves from the same fate. If we know someone's motives, we can be on the lookout. But in the end, Coburger isn't the one we should remember.

It's the lives he took. Kaylee's fierce loyalty, Maddie's easy laugh, Zana's quiet confidence, Ethan's big-hearted charm. There's no neat ending here. But when you strip away all the theories, all the fear and anger, what's left are four names, four faces, and a town that will never forget.

Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. next week for the story of a new murder and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios here at Crime House. We want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate to review and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your murder

True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free, and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once. We'll be back on Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pertsovsky, Sarah Camp, Alex Burns, Molly Quinlan Artwick, Honeya Saeed, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes

every week. Wednesdays, we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Follow conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.