The Megyn Kelly Show - Disturbing Idaho Murders 911 Call Released, and New Bryan Kohberger Selfie Revealed, with Howard Blum | Ep. 1032

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

Megyn Kelly is joined by Howard Blum, author of "When The Night Comes Falling," to discuss the newly-released 9-1-1 call in the Idaho college murders, new insight into the timeline of the murders, the emotional weight carried by surviving roommates and those who found the bodies, the strange delay in contacting law enforcement, the text exchanges we're now seeing between the surviving roommates, the shock and paralysis the survivors experienced, the chilling "thumbs up" selfie Brian Kohberger took hours after the Idaho murders, his eerily calm and bloodless appearance, the defense’s potential arguments, what we're learning about the knife searches Kohberger had done, and more.More from Blum- https://www.harpercollins.com/products/when-the-night-comes-falling-howard-blumFYSI: https://FYSI.com/Megyn or call 800-877-4000Just Thrive: Visit https://justthrivehealth.com/discount/Megyn and use code MEGYN to save 20% sitewideFollow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Oh, we've got some major updates in the Brian Kohlberger case out in Idaho and his upcoming trial, which is still set for this August. I mean, at one point it seemed so far away, didn't it? And now we're coming up on it. Information about this case had been coming out at a snail's pace. Oh my God, until now. I've been following the case and talking with Howard Bloom. You guys know him by this point, my team about it, and even I am just blown away by what just got released. In the last week,

we learned more about how Kohlberger may have obtained the knife prosecutors allege he used in the heinous act of killing four innocent college students in Moscow, Idaho. It happened in November 2022. It happened within a 12 to 17 minute period at 4 a.m. He was a teaching assistant and Ph.D. student at the nearby Washington State and Washington University. And they were all students at Idaho. And he is alleged to have come to their home in the middle of the night, killed the two best friends, Madison Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves, who were sleeping in a bed together as female best friends often do, as well as Zanna Kurnodal and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, who were in a different room on the second floor.

The two girls on the third, Zanna and Ethan on the second. And there were two other roommates in the house. Okay, two other roommates in the house. Okay. Two other roommates in the house. And we are learning so much more about them and what they did or did not do. I don't, I don't even know how to process murders. And it is the most chilling thing I have seen in years. I can't stop looking at it. We also now finally, finally have the 911 call that was made from this house on 1122 King Street. That's the murder house, which for all this time they've been withholding from us. Why? We didn't understand. There's a lot in there and nobody has been

following this case closer than Howard Bloom. He's a journalist. He's the New York Times bestselling author of the book, When the Night Comes Falling, a requiem for the Idaho student murders. And he's my guest today. You want to know one big health secret that no one seems to be talking about? Everything. I mean, everything starts in your gut. But every day your gut is fighting a silent war against processed foods, work stress, fluoride in the water, even the toxins that you breathe in the air. And when your gut is in trouble, your whole body feels it. Most people are spending money on probiotics that don't even work. Why? Most traditional brands die in your stomach acid before they reach your gut. But Just Thrive spore-based probiotic is completely

different. Just Thrive is the only probiotic clinically proven to arrive 100% alive in your gut. And it does something no other probiotic can. It turns your gut into an antioxidant factory, creating protective compounds exactly where you need the most. Better digestion, healthy immunity, more energy, and easy weight management. Plus, Just Thrive probiotic comes in a capsule or a delicious berry-flavored gummy, so there's an option for everyone in the fam. To join the gut health revolution and take control of your health today, visit justthrivehealth.com and save 20% site-wide with promo code Megan. That's just thrive health.com promo code M E G Y N Howard. Welcome back. Nice to speak with you. All right,

let's kick it off with a nine one one call. It is four minutes. We are going to listen to the whole thing. Play it. Am I on the location of the emergency? All right. Something is happening. Something's happening in our house. We don't know what. What is the address of the emergency? 112. What is the rest of the address? Oh, Kings Road. Okay.

And is that a house or an apartment? It's a house. Can you repeat the address to make sure that I have it right? I'll talk to you guys. We live at the White, so we're next to them. I need someone to repeat the address for verification. The address, 1122 King Road. And what's the phone number that you're calling from?

What's your phone number? And tell me exactly what's going on. One of the roommates has passed out, and she was drunk last night, and she's not waking up. Okay. Oh, and they saw some man in their drunk last night and she's not waking up okay oh and they saw some man in their house last night yeah and are you with the patient okay i need someone to keep the phone

stop passing it around can i just tell you what happened pretty much what is going on currently is someone passed out right now i don't really know but pretty much at 4 a.m okay i need to know what's going on right now if someone passed out right now? I don't really know, but pretty much at 4 a.m. Okay, I need to know what's going on right now if someone is passed out. Can you find that out? Yeah, I'll come. Come on, but we gotta go check. But we have to. She's not waking up. Okay. One moment. I'm getting help started that way. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. 40. 40 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and how old is she? She's 20. 20, you said? Yes, 20. Okay.

Hello? Hello? Okay, I need someone to stop passing the phone around because I've talked to four different people. Okay, sorry, they just gave me the phone. Is she breathing? Hello? Is she breathing? No.

Okay. I'm off. Don't talk to the one crazy in the house. Luke, talk to them, okay? I can't talk to them. I need you to talk to them. Hello. Okay.

I have already sent the ambulance and law enforcement. Stay on the line. If there is a defibrillator available, send someone to get it now and tell me when you have it. Say that again? There's a police here right now. Okay. If there is a defibrillator available, send someone to get it now and tell me when you have it.

We don't have it. It's not breathing. I can see it. Do you have a defibrillator? Yes. Yes, we have one. Are you talking to the officer? Yes.

Okay. I'm going to let you go since he's there with you and can help you. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Wow. Incredibly disturbing. Just so the audience understands that the murders happened at 4 a.m. That call did not get placed until almost noon

the next morning, 1155 a.m. And for all this time, they have not released the 911 call. It wasn't until this week we finally got to hear it. We believe, not totally confirmed, but we believe that the girl who made the call initially was Bethany Funk, one of the two roommates who survived. The other roommate is named Dylan Mortensen. She's the one who saw an intruder, which they were trying to tell the 911 operator, who wasn't in the mood to talk about what happened the night before. But those are the two surviving roommates. So we believe that's Bethany Funk who could barely get sentences out. And Howard, you know, the remarkable thing, of course, is that they're talking about their roommate having been drunk and she isn't waking up. And just the one roommate,

they're not, I am assuming that they had found Zanna Kernodle, who was on the second floor with her boyfriend, Ethan, because they are not saying four. They only had three of the female roommates, but they're not saying four of our friends are dead. They're saying one girl's passed out and she was drunk last night. We think she's dead. Right. It seems that they did not even go up to the third floor what's so you know horrific you just listen to the hyperventilation uh it's just it's so poignant what they went through and the idea first of all that they did not make the call as you pointed out until about eight hours after the crimes took place and it's just been released that they were up that morning.

One of the girls at 7.30, another at about 8.20, and they were making other calls and texts. And they still wait until 11.50 or so to call the police. And that's sort of hard to understand. And yet, you know, these children, and they are children, were overwhelmed by this. And part of their reluctance, why they might not have called the police and the fact that they were drunk, they didn't want to face the reality. We all hate to face some possible things. But you

can see from the dispatcher how the kids, the students in this college town felt the adults react to them we saw that on the police videos earlier when they come to the house on the noise uh disturbances calls how the cops go out of their way to dump their beer on the sidewalk there's a real antagonism between this the students and the town and that i actually that I think, to their reluctance to have reached out for help, but also again to... Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, it's very eerie. So that she calls and says, something is happening. And they say one of the roommates is passed out. And they're clearly referring to Xanarkar Nodal because when she says, how old is she? She says she's 20 and both Kaylee and Maddie were 21. And when you're that age, you know, exactly the number of years you are, you know what

I mean? Like your, your age means a lot to you, especially when you're 20 versus 21 college roommates would absolutely have all the other ages in their heads of their roommates. And so she's saying she's 20. So she clearly found Xanaanna but where was ethan because our understanding was if memory serves i didn't go back and look this up that he was found closer to the doorway of the bedroom that he was in zanna they don't mention him i don't think she's found zanna yet what i think and the way i reconstructed is the door was closed and they were knocking, because when they go up, I think it's Hunter Johnson, one of the friends, goes up and knocks on the door.

And he's on was scaring them they were afraid to go into the room they knew what they would find they were but they couldn't quite face this unthinkable reality and so they kept outside and hunter was the one who went in and he behaved like a knight in shining armor and difficult situation makes more sense because they're not saying there's blood everywhere you know you and i talked about how there was so much blood it seeped through the walls of the house they're not saying that they're like we're not sure she she was drunk last night she maybe passed out so clearly but but they did call 9-1-1 and so they clearly thought something was wrong maybe it was that she wasn't responding to texts and she wasn't.

I don't know why they're not talking about Kaylee and Maddie. Kaylee, I think, wasn't even supposed to be there that night. She'd stayed over. She had moved out, but she was back visiting Maddie. But they're not mentioning Maddie. Nobody seems to be aware that there also might be an issue on the third floor. All of it is just so strange. And then we have to talk about the thing you just mentioned

which is the text messages that morning but first make your point go ahead they had intimations that something was wrong because you can see after the night before the morning before at 4 a.m approximately when she confronts coberger and then she uh this is uh dylan and then she goes back into her room the two surviving roommates are texting back and forth. And they'd almost like a prayer. She wants her to get there safely. And they stay there together until about 7.30 the next morning when they wake up. And again, they start texting and calling people, but they don't get to the police. They're afraid to get to the next level. They don't want to go into that room themselves and they don't want to call the police. It's all too impossible to deal with. And it's a tragedy, I think, that the tape wasn't released

earlier, because for the past two and a half years, these two young women, the surviving roommates, have been slandered, libeled, their characters have been impugned, that they somehow were involved in some sort of cover-up. And you can just listen to this tape, and you can see that they were not involved in the events, but they are victims too. Unbelievable. So you've got, well, now we know this is all new. You've got the two surviving witnesses because all along we knew that Dylan had seen the perpetrator, had seen an intruder that night wearing a COVID type mask with bushy eyebrows around six feet tall in the house at 4 a.m. in the 4 a.m. hour. And that they she saw him. It was unclear whether he saw her, but she froze. He left. She went back into her room and we knew that they didn't call 9-1-1

until noon the next day. So eight hours passed before she calls 9-1-1. And it's been one of the big mysteries in this case. Why didn't she call 9- she call 911? She saw an intruder in the house in the middle of the night. And we know from the police affidavit, she said she was in a frozen shock phase and that's why she didn't call. But that just seemed very strange that it would take you eight hours, like you eventually would call. But then they were saying, well, it was a neighbor that came in and called. And you mentioned Hunter. Yes, he did come in and call, but we understand that was Bethany. And we think Dylan was also involved. So these two roommates now we know were texting, were scared, were in the, the one ran to the other one's room. They were in there

hiding. And it's, it appears that they may have gotten ahold of Hunter to come over to help check things out, but we still don't really understand the delay, why that didn't happen earlier than noon. The delay is irrational. It makes no sense, but this was an irrational moment. They were going through an experience that was overwhelming them. They couldn't process it, and they didn't want to process it. They refused to confront the logic of what was happening. Just as when Dylan sees the assailant in the house, she can't speak out. That's what I believe saves her life. If she had spoken up, I think she would have been a victim too. But because she's

too overwhelmed, she retreats into her silence and goes into a room. The intruder leaves the house and she survives. But, you know, this is really a story about people who are overwhelmed by events and don't want to face what is happening because it's too large. I write in my book, coincidentally, about how Koberger's father, as he's going across country with his son, as they're leaving for Christmas break, he too is getting intimations that something is wrong, but he can't quite go all the way. He can't make this realization that his son is a monster. And in the same way, these two young women can't somehow cross this Rubicon of what has really happened in their house, what has really happened in their house, what has really happened to their friends. Yeah. I'm going to read for the audience what we have

now on the text messages between the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk, from 4.22 to 4.24 a.m. And we know, we know that the murders happened between 4 a.m. and 4.17 a.m. So this is right after, clearly, it appears Dylan started texting Bethany right after she saw the intruder. So DM to BF, no one is answering. We're not sure what preceded this. This is what we have. DM to BF, I'm really confused right now. DM to Kaylee Gonsalves, who we now know is upstairs deceased. Kaylee, DM to Gonsalves again. What's going on? Then Bethany texts to DM. Yeah, dude, WTF. Then Bethany to Dylan. Zanna was wearing all black. I don't understand why she would say that. Then Dylan to Bethany. I'm freaking out right that. Then Dylan to Bethany. I'm freaking out

right now. Then Dylan to Bethany. No, it's like a ski mask almost, she says. Bethany to Dylan. STFU, you know, shut the F-U-F up. Bethany to DM. Actually, DM to BF. Like he had something over his forehead and little mouth. This is changing. I mean, really, this sounds like, she says, ski mask. What she later told the cops was like a COVID mask. Here's Dylan back to Bethany. I'm not kidding. I'm so freaked out. Bethany to Dylan. So am I. Dylan to Bethany. My phone is going to die. Bethany to Dylan, come to my room, run down here. And then we understand that's what she did. So they go together into the same room, but then, but then we have to talk about the texts the next morning, because what, what we see is that,

um, okay. At seven 30, the next morning, Bethany called her father at 730 in the morning. She called her father, Howard. I don't get how we get past 8 talked about when they say Zana is in black they're trying to find a rational reason explanation of this figure that they see in black in the house they can say well maybe that wasn't a man you saw maybe that was Zana who you saw worry about again this is just just too large the moment is too large for these people to process. They're overwhelmed by it. I don't think they'll ever process it. And there's more. There's more. So Bethany called her father at 7.30 the next morning. She also made several other phone calls before the 9-1-1 call and also

took photos between 8.41 and 8.42. At 8.05, Dylan, switching over from Bethany to Dylan now, began using Instagram. Between 8.05 and 11.57 a.m., Dylan's cell phone accessed Instagram, Snapchat, Yik Yak, and TikTok, according to a filing from the defense. Now, that could be Dylan trying to see whether Zanna or anyone else has been on and posted to those apps. I mean, that could absolutely be one girl, because they were very prolific social media posters trying to see. I would believe they were just looking for diversions. What would be most interesting, and I think the defense will want to get a hold of, is what did one girl say to her father when she called at 7.30 in the morning? What was the substance of

that conversation? Did they talk about the instance? And why didn't the father then call 911 if she had discussed the matter with him? Why did it was 730 in the morning? That to me is the more inexplicable question that still needs to be answered. And it also is interesting. All these questions that you're raising, this is just what the defense is going to do there's because there's no logical explanation for them and they're going to try to raise as much doubt as possible with the jury and that's what this trial is all going to be about trying to find reasons to raise doubt from things that seem on one level odd, but unfolded in real life. Well, one of them, I'm not sure which of the roommates, but one of them called their father at 1139 AM. So again, you know, either again, if it was the one gal who'd already called her

father or for the first time. And so that was 1139. And then it was 1155 that they called the 911 operator. So it seems like perhaps, okay, so it was Bethany who called her father at seven 30. And again, we believe it was Bethany who called 911 eventually. Um, and then at 1139, there was another call to a father by 1155. They were calling 911. So perhaps in that last call to the father, he was like, call 911. And we know that actually, I think he said, call your friends, get your friends down here. When the father, that's what brought the kids from the fraternity down there to look. And that's when the, when they had more people there, they felt protected in a way. And then they called the police. All right. Now we'll get on to

what the defense is revealing, what we've learned, what we're learning about Kohlberger in a minute, which is even more fascinating than this, if that's possible. But I just want to spend one minute first in these 911 calls and what's going on with the roommates, because Steve Gonsalves, who's Kaylee's father, has reacted. He went on News Nation on Friday to that call, listening to the four-minute call that we all just did. Here is SOP 51. I always wanted it to make more sense. Like any murder, your brain wants to gravitate towards make this make sense, make this make sense. But the truth is murder never makes sense. This is a psychopathic person who does something that breaks the norm of all of our consciousness.

All of our minds are just struggling with the fact that this has happened. So we can logically try to make it make sense, but it's not really going to make sense. It's not Hollywood where they try to make it all fit together. In real life, you're just sitting there dumbfounded like, why can somebody be killed in their bedroom? He also spoke to Hunter Johnson. You know, you're describing him as behaving heroically, who went over there and actually did apparently open up the door and see his best friend, Ethan Chapin, dead, along with his friend, Zanna Cronodal. Steve Gonsalves spoke to that as well on News Nation on Friday. Take a listen.

I talked to Hunter directly and it sucks. He had a broken soul. This is a man who's seen his best friend dead you know like dying like gone so um we exchanged a moment and i talked to him and he was trying to protect everyone in that house to not go through what was overwhelming him at the moment so i don't know about the details of upstairs downstairs door open door not but in the bigger picture doesn't really matter he was literally just responding to what he probably thought was a prank thinking his friend his best buddy had these girls rolling and, um, he showed up there and he, he, he seen the opposite of our prank. And, um, I seen it in his eyes. He, he was broken. He was very broken from what he had seen.

That's awful. But Howard, you know, he raises a good point in that here we are with the benefit of 2020 hindsight, knowing what happened in that house that night, those girls did not know. And your mind would not go to a murderer came in here and killed everyone. You know, they probably would go to, I sensed danger and I saw someone strange, but you know, our instincts are generally like, don't get everybody spun up for nothing, like calm down, right? Like it's probably a prank. And yet they're also realizing in one part of their mind that something is very wrong and they just don't want to go there yet. They don't want to give into that. It's as if you don't want to get the doctor's diagnosis of some horrible illness. And Mr. Gonsalves talks about, you know, there's no

understanding of what happened. That's going to be the defense's whole case. There's no motive. And you're never going to get really a motive for this entire case that makes sense. Maybe you'll hear a story in the court, but how can you rationally explain anyone killing four young people in cold blood? There is no reason that makes sense for any reasonable thinking person. Okay, now let's talk about Kohlberger because the stuff on him is just chilling. Incredibly, we have now seen a photo, okay, that's been released of Brian Kohlberger. They say this was taken from his own phone, all right? They've revealed now that the state intends to introduce a photograph of Brian Kohlberger. It's a selfie that he took from his own phone the night of the murders,

the morning after. Oh my God, look at it. The murders took place between 4 and 4, 17 a.m. in the early morning hours of November 13th. This is from 1130 a.m. This would have been six hours after he allegedly committed quadruple murder, which he denies. He looks bloodless. He looks like a vampire with no color whatsoever in his face. He looks gaunt, and he is giving the thumbs up sign. What in the hell is this, Howard? What the defense is going to say, you look at him, he might look gaunt, he might look like a vampire, but you don't see any blood. And you don't see any blood in his bathtub behind him. And you don't see any blood on the shower curtain. They're going to say, if he is the murderer, where was the blood?

And the prosecution at the same time introduced that photo to show his bushy eyebrows that Dylan Mortensen, when she made the identification of the intruder. Let's put it back up there. I hadn't been looking at it for that purpose, but yes, it does. It does show some bushy eyebrows. Keep going. And that's what they're going to say. But also look at his knuckles. Do they seem sort of red? I don't know. I was trying to look at it closely, but other than is looking like, you know, a really weird confidence. But there's no crime to be weird. You don't see any blood. You don't see any scratches on him. And again, that bathroom curtain in the background, when the police go to his apartment, when they have the search warrant after his arrest, there's no bathroom curtain there.

They make a point of that. that so clearly if this was it's got psycho vibes it's definitely got psycho vibes from the movie psycho in the shower right with the guy committed a murder with a knife like he's wearing all white it's buttoned up to the top it's it almost feels like a murderer trolling us and we know from the police affidavit, Howard, that this would have been taken about an hour after he went back to, if the cops theory of the case is right, based on police data and cell phone data. He went back to the site of the murders around 930 in the morning and apparently checked on the scene. And we know now, of course, nothing was happening at the scene at that time. Inside, the girls may have been texting, but the police had not yet been alerted. And look at him. Then he appears to have gone back home, gone into his bathroom and taken this

bizarre selfie. It's extremely disturbing and disquieting. At the same time, both the defense and the prosecution are going to be able to use that photograph for their own purposes. Again, the defense will make the case. No blood, no scratches, nothing to hide, no crime to be weird. And the prosecution is going to say, you know, look at the bushy eyebrows. and they might even try to raise the question of the thumbs up. What's he giving a thumbs up for? So that I can't stop looking at it. This is just so deeply disturbing, but that's not the worst thing that's happened to Brian Kohlberger over the past couple of years as the case against him has been developed. This may be, I mean, you and I've talked many times about what we think of the evidence. And I think we both think one of, if not, well, there are two most problematic things, the DNA on the knife sheath, which has been affirmatively linked to be, it is Brian Kohlberger's and also the fact that when they arrested him at his parents' home in the Poconos a few weeks later, he was stuffing his trash into little Ziploc baggies with the intention of disposing it,

we believe, into the neighbor's trash, which is what he'd been doing, according to the cops, over the past few nights. So those are bad, bad, bad facts for him. But so is the latest data on the K-Bar knife. They've never found the murder weapon. They found the knife sheath in the bed with the two girls, Kaylee and Maddie, and it had touch DNA on the knife snap, the snap of the sheath, which they then linked, thanks to genetic genealogy trees, back to the father of Brian Kohlberger, which is then what got them to Brian Kohlberger, who was only 10 miles away.

And then once they got him in custody, they did an affirmative DNA test of his cheek swab, and that was 100% plus whatever the numbers are there astronomically in the favor of it being him and his DNA on that knife sheath snap. But now they are revealing that they may not have found the murder weapon, Howard, but they certainly found some incriminating things on Brian Kohlberger's Amazon. Yes. I mean, Brian Kohlberger bought a knife just like the one that was used or left behind at the murder scene with the knife sheath with the Marine insignia, a K-bar knife in March before he even came out to Washington State University. That would suggest that when he drove across country that summer with his father, he had the knife and a sharpening tool he'd also bought

packed up in his belongings, taking out to Washington State for whatever reason. And he wasn't a hunter. There's no evidence that he ever went hunting. What also has been revealed is that after the murders and the knife has now disappeared, his Amazon account or the account that's shared by Koberger and his family members are, he was clicking on other knives as if to purchase them again. The defense is going to say that the Amazon algorithm just sends you there.

If you put a knife in the past, they'll send you there again. But buried in the prosecution's filings is they're saying that they're going to have a witness. They mentioned that just yesterday, who's going to testify to him having possession of a K-bar knife. Will this be a family member? I found that sort of interesting. Could a family member be going to the stand to testify against Brian? Wow. I mean, they would feel an obligation, I think, to do it. I just feel like the whole country has, you know, been interested in this case, these family members, the sister in particular, I think there are two sisters. Um, they, I just feel like they they'd have to do what's right if they knew it, but we'll, we'll find out. The thing about Amazon is just so fascinating. So what we're

saying is, you know, they had not been public until now. One of the sisters I just found out, excuse me, is writing a book, which is sort of interesting. What? Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, well, she's welcome to come on The Megyn Kelly Show to promote it, because I'd love to ask her some questions, truly. She can't publish until the gag order is lifted, but she's writing away from what I hear. I've been told from reliable sources. Well, so it's very interesting that he would have potentially gone back on Amazon

searching for another K-bar knife and knife sheath. You could go many directions with that. Like he lost the knife sheath and didn't have the knife anymore because he disposed of it. It was the murder weapon. And therefore, in case the police ever came knocking, he wanted to have that knife that they would see in his Amazon history he purchased back in March before he got there, still sitting in his Amazon history he purchased back in March before he got there, still sitting in his room without any traces of blood on it. See, I'm a good little boy. I still have my knife and it's not anybody's murder weapon. Or you could make the case he had more murders in store that he considered doing it again.

That's the chilling hypothesis that the prosecution, I think, is going to try to make. And that's how they're going to justify any shortcuts that were taken in this case. We had to move quickly. Here we had a murderer they're going to claim, a ledge, who was ready to kill again. Do you remember the time frame off the top of your head where he started to search for a new Amazon, on amazon for a new k-bar knife it's days after the murders uh within 24 hours or so uh oh my god that's chilling interesting too you mentioned the igg the genetics genealogy now that was a key part of the case before well the defense is coberger's defense is now sort of,

would concede that was Brian Koberger's DNA on the knife sheath. The real question now, what's gonna be the focus of this trial is, how did the knife sheath get there? The defense is going to claim that Brian Koberger was never in the house. He didn't put it there. The real perpetrators put that knife sheath there and somehow they had gotten Koberger's DNA on it.

That is such a stretch. I mean, what I'm gleaning from what's getting released now is the defense knows it's, I don't want to say it has lost, but it's got an enormous uphill battle. And you tell me, because you've been following it so closely, it appears to me they're now just doing what they can to mitigate the expected bad result, as opposed to truly try to get a not guilty, which I'm sure they'd love. But I think they're getting realistic. I think in the back of the defense's mind, and this is what I'm hearing, is they're trying to avoid the death penalty. Just last week, I think it was March 12th or so, Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, signed a law that makes the firing squad

the primary form of execution in the state, that's what happens. You get convicted in a death penalty case, you go before the firing squad. That's your sentence. And Koberger's team is now trying to do whatever they can to avoid it. The key to that defense is they've raised that Koberger is on the autistic spectrum. And they're saying that he has an inability to concentrate, to focus. His presence in the courtroom will disturb people. And they're saying that will be prejudiced jurors, and therefore the death penalty should be taken off the table because of that. I believe, and this is just my theory, my hypothesis,

is that they don't think that will fly. But they're hoping down the road that if Koberger still wants this case to go to trial, that they're going to be able to say, because of his autistic spectrum profile, that he can't make his own decisions, that they have to make the decisions for him, and that they want to enter into a plea deal. Will the prosecution go along with that? Well, that's, uh, that's what we'll see. That's going to be the, I think the big drama of this trial. So they are, you think they're now, because now they're saying he has, he's on the autism spectrum, that he has obsessive compulsive disorder and that he has something called developmental coordination disorder. And,

and so is the purpose of saying all that to set up, I mean, I don't know how you'd use that to, to plead insanity. That's a long leap to go from that stuff to insanity? Or is the purpose of that just to be like a mitigating factor to avoid death penalty? Well, it was done to avoid the death penalty, but also buried into that motion is they talk in great detail, which I sort of found surprising, about Kohlberger's inability to process information and to, this is a PhD graduate candidate, and also to work

with them to give them the information that they need. They say they're hampered by Koberger. So I think they're going to claim that he's unable to be in charge of his own defense, that he can't make the right decisions, and therefore they want to take over the case completely and make the decisions, and they want, without his permission, to go forward to the state and try to make a plea deal. Do you think there's any chance he's saying something behind the scenes like, I will testify? And they're trying, they're getting ready to use these things to say, Your Honor, you can't let him do this. It's definitely against his interests, and we need to be able to overrule him in this fundamental right he has. Well, the state wants him to testify. They want him,

he's given this alibi that he was out, you know, looking at the stars at 4 a.m. on a freezing, cloudy night when the murders took place in a rural park. And the state is saying, well, since there are no witnesses, we want Koberger to get on the stand and say that he was there. And so far, the defense is saying, not so fast. We're going to bring up cell phone people who can maybe put him somewhere else or raise questions. But I think he will want to testify. I think, and that's also part of, they will say his autistic spectrum behavior, and they will try to take the decision-making process

out of Koberger's hands, and maybe even his family's hands too. And maybe getting all this, if they can get all these disorders, alleged disorders into the record without him testifying, it mitigates some of the other things that you and I have talked about that may come in, like his increasingly dissembling behavior in the classroom at Washington State, the antagonism of his professors and the weird potential stalking of one of his female students

and, you know, volunteering to help put her security cameras in and not being able to take a hint. Like they may be trying to, I mean, none of this stuff explains that everybody listening to this knows somebody who's on the autism spectrum who doesn't do any of that stuff. You can be totally normal and be on the autism spectrum. You might just be like a little socially awkward. Not, none of that, nevermind OCD, which is not like, and I don't know what developmental coordination disorder is, but it certainly doesn't seem like it would explain any of that stuff. But there's a lot of very bizarre Kohlberger behavior to explain.

Yes. And, but I think, you know, you can be bizarre and you can be weird and still be a killer. And they're realizing the state is trying to throw everything they can. They're trying to now also claim that they didn't get the discovery information in a logical form. The state's claiming that or the defense is claiming that? The defense is claiming that. I apologize. They described it as if a snow globe was turned upside down. That's how all the files were given to them. That was sort of the image they use. That's fine. There's no. I don't think it's going to work. They realize they're getting put into a corner. If they don't make a plea deal, what their

case is going to come down to is they're going to say that they were other perpetrators that the state, that the defense and the government should have, I mean, that the prosecution should have looked into and they avoided them. And they say they avoided them at their own peril. That's their word. They're almost threatening them. They said, because you didn't do your job, we're going to go into the courtroom and we're going to expose how you didn't do a good job. And that might be more pressure for them trying to get a settlement to avoid what they're going to claim is a slipshod job in making this case by the prosecution and the investigators. But that's, you know, they still, they will go back time and time. What we're going to hear about, I think, this summer is the question we repeated by Ann

Taylor, how did this knife sheath get in that room? Who put it there? And that's what they're going to try to get the jury thinking about, that it was someone other than their client, Brian Koberger. The evidence of where his car was on the night in question is starting to shore up as well. We saw the judge in the case judge hipler which again is just a you got really got to hit the p when you say that hip it's hip hipler i don't understand why people keep these names that are so controversial or weird like i don't get it i would change my name i was better than judge judge the first one the first judge's right. I guess we can forgive defense attorney Ann Taylor. You know, she didn't, when her parents, when she was a kid, her parents might not have

known what was going to happen there. Anyway, Hipler just denied Kohlberger's request to bring in defense experts who he wanted to offer testimony against both the Amazon shopping trip, who, as you point out, I guess they were going to have their experts say, oh no, it was just like when you order a vitamin and they assume your vitamin has run out and they send you a tickler, like here are your vitamins, like here's another knife, just in case you were planning on killing anything else. That's one.

But also they wanted to bring in an expert, uh, to talk about his movements on the night in question. And Hippler said, no, Hippler said, you can have, um, you can have that done by, uh, streaming video streaming during the hearing. And, or he said, if we need to hear directly from the witnesses, we can, um, potentially have an affidavit or a written declaration. But when you having looked at like the record of the car where it's been, I mean, I'm looking at the map. And what it's basically going to show is he drove directly to their houses. Like it's showing pretty much a straight line once he got near the house of going right to their houses. What did you make of the new evidence on where his car was?

Well, the first part about what's so interesting about the cell phone triangulation expert that the defense wanted to use, he's been used in other cases, and his whole testimony has been impugned. They really had to search to find one guy who would testify, and they brought in a very problematic expert who's not quite an expert.

A Colorado judge threw his testimony out of the court in a previous case. This is the defense's expert? Yes, and that's interesting. I think that's why Hippler was was saying we don't need this. As for the car, you know, they're going to keep on hammering away. You have no picture of a license plate and you have no picture of anyone over the steering wheel. There's no clear photograph. And that's that's they're going to make that case.

And they're also going to say it took the FBI three different times before they correctly identified the car within a certain number of years. And they're going to say the FBI couldn't make up their mind, there's no license plate photo, and there's no picture of a driver. So all this other stuff is irrelevant. You know, they're going to try desperately, but there's just so much evidence against Koberger that I think the prosecution has a very, very strong case. So what now, here we are, well, five months out from trial. What are the odds this does go to trial, Howard, or do you think it actually has a chance of pleading out to I mean, I can't imagine the prosecution with a case like this would take anything other than a murder one confession and possibly spare him the death penalty.

But what are the odds? I think the defense of the defense will try to get a plea deal. I don't believe in Idaho that the Idaho officials will allow this case to be settled. This case is at the heart and soul of Idaho. It's been horrific for the whole state. They can try to tear down, which the state did, the university did, the murder house and make things go away. This is never going to go away. You've heard that cell phone call. You've heard those students. This is part of their life. They want this case to end in a punishment. And I think it will end with a conviction. And I think Kohlberger, my belief is, will have to be sentenced to face a firing squad. I mean, I believe he did it. and I would have no problem if a jury finds him guilty of seeing that happen.

I don't know. The firing squad, you hate to think about it, but would it really be so bad to be in front? I feel like a firing squad in some ways may be more humane than the electric chair. What's the debate about that? Here's an argument that proves in Idaho that it's more humane. Last spring, well, last October, they had a convict and they were going to use a lethal injection. They wheeled him into what is called the execution chamber.

They strap him down. They try to give him the lethal injection. They give him eight lethal injections over a course of two and a half hours, and none of them work. Was he like a cat? Yes. I mean, for some reason, the people doing these lethal injections were prison guards rather than medical people, and they just couldn't do it. And he has to be wheeled out. And then his lawyers try to make the case, well, this is cruel and inhumane punishment to bring him again. And the governor, Brad Little, who just passed this firing squad law, said, not on your life. Bring him back again.

But do you know how they do the firing squad? I think we talked about this once before. Did you say they have multiple shooters? So you don't know if you're the one who fired the fatal shot? They haven't worked out all the details all they've done so far they originally made a 750 000 was put aside to build this sort of firing squad execution chamber they've now said for for reasons that haven't been explained they now need a million dollars for this execution chamber so they in this million dollar room they're still debating whether or not these will be robo guns or will they be people with bullets? Will they be behind a wall? Nothing has been determined yet. Wow. God, when you really start, it's just like any,

whenever I start to hear about the death penalty, I hear about the crime and I think I'm fine with it. Do it. I'll pull the trigger myself. And then when you start to talk about the actual details of the state taking someone's life, even someone as disgusting as this, I start to get uncomfortable with it. And I think about my Catholic faith. It's just one of those issues. I don't know. I still, net net, I'm in favor of the death penalty. Howard, I am in favor of you very much for all the great work you've been doing on this case and keeping us up to date like nobody else. Thank you. Pleasure talking with you again. Wow. What are your thoughts? You guys always write the best thoughts on this case and

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