The Megyn Kelly Show - Shocking New Kohberger Case Details About DNA Match, "Unknown Male" Blood, and Witness, with Howard Blum | Ep. 1002
Episode Date: February 7, 2025Megyn Kelly is joined by Howard Blum, author of "When The Night Comes Falling," to discuss how the FBI may have illegally obtained the DNA match from Bryan Kohberger in the Idaho college murders case,... whether the defense team may be able to get the DNA match thrown out entirely, how crucial the single DNA match is to the prosecutor's case, the new details about blood from two unknown males in the Idaho college murders house, how this helps Kohberger's defense, a theory about whether Kohberger could have planted this evidence, the “eyewitness” testimony from the surviving roommate of the Idaho murders falling apart as new details emerge, her admitting she had been drunk and unable to identify Kohberger, and more. Blum- https://www.harpercollins.com/products/when-the-night-comes-falling-howard-blum?variant=41292317949986Follow 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
Transcript
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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 and today's bonus AM episode.
Brian Kohlberger, the suspect accused of murdering four University of Idaho students, is set to go to trial in August. But in late January,
there was a pretrial hearing, and an important one, that revealed shocking new information
that we have not heard before. Joining me now to break down all the developments is Howard Bloom,
journalist and New York Times bestselling author of When the Night Comes Falling,
a requiem for the Idaho student murders.
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Howard, welcome back. I have to say it's such a busy news time for us to be doing this. Just
shows the significance of what happened at that hearing on January 23rd and 24th. I was like,
we've got to get this on because I appreciate it. I mean, I don't want to overstate beginning, but just a little speck of DNA
smaller than a piece of dust that was left on the button of a knife sheath that was left behind.
They used this speck of DNA, they processed it so that they could give it to an FBI laboratory.
The FBI laboratory then, after months of not admitting what they had done,
it was revealed in the end of January in court that they had taken this DNA and they had
uploaded it to two websites, ancestry DNA websites that prohibit law enforcement from
using this DNA. The FBI did this not out of any evil reasons, but just out of
their zeal. You have to go back to the time of the killing. It was a murder of four young children
on the loose. They had really no clues except for this DNA. Except for this DNA, it was in many ways the perfect crime.
They had no blood evidence, really.
They had no evidence of anyone stalking these young college students.
All they had was this DNA, so they ran with it.
And this DNA allowed them to open up many other doors, ultimately having a series of search warrants that led to
the suspects, Brian Kohlberger's phone, his car, his apartment. But without that DNA,
they couldn't have gotten these search warrants. And now the defense is saying,
wait a minute, wait a minute. This suspect's Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the FBI's going into these
prohibited websites.
That's you've been saying this all along.
You've been suspecting that the FBI got this match between the DNA, the touch DNA on the
knife sheath and matched it to Kohlberger's father, possibly by doing something they're not allowed to do, which is use the
commercial DNA websites that people like you and I might go to if we're looking for a long-lost
relative. They have a public database. CeCe Moore, the original creator of genetic genealogy,
talked to us about this a long time ago saying, there's only one that's
totally public and anyone can upload their DNA and see what's on there. The other two are fee
for service private companies that are not allowed to be used by law enforcement. Otherwise, nobody
would go on there, right? They'd be like, if I ever committed a crime or have a relative down
the line who might've committed a crime, I'm going to get them in trouble. So there's supposed to be
this hard wall. And you said early on, you suspected because the FBI seemed to be very cagey about this whole
thing. They didn't want to turn over the results of how they got this to anybody that maybe they
had done something they weren't allowed to go ahead. Well, not only did they not want to turn
over the results, they said, they said literally that they had ripped up the evidence of
their research. They said, we just threw it out. Who ever heard of a major murder investigation,
the FBI discarding evidence? But this is what they did. But the defense kept on pressing and pressing
and now they got a judge to give him the evidence and it proves beyond the shadow
of a doubt, it came out in open court that the FBI violated the protocols of these two genetic
websites. Now, how is that going to affect the case? The judge- Wait, wait, before you answer
that, let's just show the audience what Kohlberger's defense attorney, Ann Taylor, yes, that's her name, argued about this investigative genetic genealogy, IgG, evidence.
Listen to her in Stop 41.
Your Honor, our position is that the court should suppress the IgG identification and everything that flows from that.
This is supported by Fourth Amendment of the United States
Constitution, due process, Article 1, Section 17 of the Idaho Constitution.
There was no warrant for several phases of the search that led to the IGG work,
investigative genetic genealogy. And we think every single one of those stages,
a warrant was required,
none was given, and so this must be suppressed. She's saying all the goods they got after getting that hit have to be suppressed and cannot be used because they're in essence the fruit of
the poisonous tree. Exactly. And if you look at what they had before then, there's not much except for one thing.
After Koberger is arrested, he's in a Pennsylvania jail and they do a cheek swab.
And the DNA from that cheek swab matches the DNA on the button of the knife sheath.
That is pretty substantial evidence. But if they can get that thrown out, that will make a case that seems pretty much a
shut case to be more open than shut. And there's going to be a possibility of a Franks hearing.
That's a judicial process named after a 1978 Supreme Court case where evidence was
thrown out because the police had falsified
information to get their warrants. The judge has not said he will have this Franks hearing,
but he has raised the possibility and he's asked the lawyers to keep time available to have such
a hearing. And if that's not what the prosecution wanted to hear, the prosecution wanted to hear,
there's no need for a hearing. This is ridiculous.
You know, irrespective of how we got to Brian Kohlberger's father as being related to the person whose DNA was on the knife sheath. Um, we know it is Brian Kohlberger's DNA. Cause we
ultimately took a cheek swab that shows it was him. But the, but the, so the, the problem for
the prosecution is the judge is not saying no, he's keeping the door open. He might actually
have a hearing on this.
So he's a little at least a little interested.
But can I just say this to what you just said, Howard?
The DNA, the DNA matching Kohlberger directly is absolutely devastating.
There's no question.
It's a terrible fact for the defense.
But as I understand her argument and Taylor's, it's that you would never have been cheek swabbing Brian Kohlberger if you hadn't been doing the shenanigans with the DNA and 23andMe.
She's saying you can't even use the cheek swab because it too is fruit of the poisonous tree.
That is what she's arguing.
That's part of her argument. But also at that
hearing, something else was revealed, which is perhaps even more dramatic and makes her case
even more substantial. Okay, so hold on. But before we get to that, let me finish up this part.
I know there's a lot of stuff to discuss. So just so the audience knows, that's what she's trying
to argue. She's trying to say everything that followed as a result of you figuring out that Brian
Kohlberger's DNA, his dad's DNA, was traceable from that knife sheath has to be removed.
You have to get rid of it, including the cheek swab.
Now, the judge did not seem like he was going to do that.
He seemed very into the actual cheek swab, and he didn't sound like a man who thinks
that's fruit of any poisonous tree.
But here he is, Judge Hippler, talking about that DNA match in SOP 43.
There's a DNA match between the DNA and the sheath in Mr. Koberger.
Isn't that probable cause every day and twice on Sunday?
Not in this context.
Not in this context because of the IgG work.
That's, again, she's saying the investigative genetic genealogy undermines it and makes it unusable.
Is that basically what happened?
That's basically what happened,
but also if they throw it out,
there's really not much there.
I mean, you have to, in many ways,
it was a perfect crime,
except for the leaving the knife sheath behind.
Consider the house was,
there was so much blood in the house
that it was coming out of the sides of the house.
It was coming down the foundation of the building at 1122 King Road.
And yet, no blood was ever found on Kohlberger.
No blood was found in his car.
No blood was found in his apartment.
There is no evidence also of Kohlberger having any connection to any of the murder victims.
There's no evidence of him talking to any of them, ever being in the house, of him stalking
them on the internet.
There's no murder weapon.
There's no motive even.
So without this DNA evidence, the case against Koberger becomes a lot more problematic.
Okay. But how about the fact that, I mean, the best fact, I think, other than the DNA match,
is the fact that when the police went to arrest him in the Poconos in December,
this crime was committed the month before, in November. My God, is it 2022 now? I'm trying to,
I'm losing track. Yeah, 2022. When they arrested him in his home,
back in his parents' home in December,
he was there putting his trash
into individual little baggies
that were being disposed of
in the neighbor's trash can.
That is terrible.
Very incriminating.
That is very incriminating, yes.
But if she, Ann Taylor, the defense attorney,
is trying to get that,
the FBI and the police coming into his house,
she's trying to get that thrown out.
Uh,
the terms of this,
she's claiming it was an unlawful assault without the necessary warrants to
arrest him in his house.
She's raising everything.
of course,
as,
as any good defense lawyer.
Well,
but that one's,'m i'm we've
heard her out on the genetic genealogy thing you were right and she was right that there was some
funny business going on from the sound of it but she's not there's no way she's getting out the
fbi's what they found upon arresting him for no way and it's just a terrible damn fact i don't
you know but go back to your first point i firmly believe Kohlberger committed this crime.
But what's fascinating is how good he was at covering it up. To your point,
there's no murder weapon. And she reiterated these points. So these are all updated now.
We've been speculating. But she was on the record with they haven't found a murder weapon.
They did not find any blood. How are they? She this, on Brian, on any of his belongings, or even anywhere in that car that they practically dissected? Yes. I mean, they took apart the brake gears.
They were looking all over for any blood, no blood in his student apartment at Washington
State University, nowhere. It was a perfect crime in many ways, except for leaving behind the knife sheath.
Such a massive, massive error. But what about the car and the phone evidence? Because when we read
the police affidavit before his arrest, it was white car, Hyundai Elantra. They changed the year
once they started to narrow in on Kohlberger because they
had had the years wrong. But then they said, okay, it's yeah, it's 15. It's not just 16. Anyway,
whatever his car was. And, um, we've seen that car around, you know, the, uh, the murder house
many times, according to the cops. And also his phone records show that he was in the vicinity
of the murder house over and over, including the night before.
They didn't have him there during the murder hours because his phone was off.
But then the next morning, he appeared to go back before they had found the bodies in the 9 a.m. hour.
So speak to that.
Here's what the defense is going to say, and I think it's a fairly convincing argument, especially in a death penalty case. You have a white Hyundai Elantra by the house,
but you have no proof that that's Koberger's car. You never see the license plate on any of the
videos. You never see the man behind the wheel in any of those videos. They're all obscured.
So there are lots of white Hyundai Elantras around. They can't make that connection directly.
Then when you have the cell phone tower triangulation that puts him in the neighborhood of the murder
house, well, it's a 10 mile radius.
In a town like Moscow, 10 miles takes up a lot of territory, a lot of neighborhoods.
You never have any proof that he ever parked in front of the house.
His car ever came to a halt in front of the house.
You can speculate, but you can't prove it.
Are these inferences enough to condemn a man to death?
It might be hard for a jury.
What is the seven-minute screw-up on the timeline
by the cops? Well, it seems the cops, when they were tracking the white Hyundai Elantra that night,
made an error. They got the timelines wrong, whether accidentally or deliberately,
but off by seven minutes. And they put the car that they allege
is Kohlberger's closer to Moscow at the time. But the defense is saying that because of this
screw up, which no one seems to be arguing that the cops got this time incorrect, this would have
allowed Kohlberger to be driving away from Moscow and to this state park where they claim he was at the
time of the murders. Stargazing. Yes, stargazing on a cloudy night at four in the morning when
the temperatures are a little below freezing. Oh my gosh. All right. So it's just, it's a,
it's a screw up by the cops that won't be helpful to the prosecutors in trying to show this case was
done by the book, all T's crossed, all I's dotted. All right, so that's some of the stuff. I'm
amazed. I'm amazed that at this point in the case, she's saying openly there's no blood evidence
tying him to the crime. I thought for sure they'd find something, you know, that with all the
searches they did of his apartment or his car, his clothing, there'd be some speck of the four
victims' blood. This is a brutal murder done by knife, K-bar knife, in the middle of the night.
These four beautiful college students asleep in their beds or in their rooms at least. And he
is alleged to have killed them in the course of 12 minutes, all four of them. You'd get blood
all over you, Howard. There was so much blood in the house
that it was, as I said before, coming out of the foundation of the building.
And yet make it more, even more interesting, more dramatic. It was revealed that they did
find blood in the house, unidentified blood in the house, but it wasn't Kohlbergers.
No, this is big. Oh, wait, So hold on a second before we get to that. That's an important development, but
think about it. Cause we, many of us believe that he had on like a worker's suit because we saw that
that was, he bought one via Amazon, like a, like a painter's suit, you know, that would cover up
your whole, everything you're wearing. And that that's, he did that for a reason, right? He knew
he was going to get bloody, but, and maybe he had those little that that's, he did that for a reason, right? He knew he was
going to get bloody, but, and maybe he had those little booties that, you know, like when the
heating guy comes to fix your heater, he puts on before he walks into your house. Um, but he would
have like, think about it. He's, he's sneaking out of the house covered in blood. Where did he,
where does he take the stuff off? Right. According to them, the eyewitness saw him, which would have shaken him. He wouldn't have
wanted to be hanging out in the house, disrobing, changing out of his workman suit and his booties.
If he's wearing them, he must've done that in the car. You would think he would have done that in
the car and then disposed of this along with the murder weapon on the way home. And we'll get to
the eyewitness, which is the most interesting thing of the whole day, but pause there. We'll get to the blog. We'll get to the eyewitness.
So if you put, if you got into your car with a bloodied jumpsuit and a bloodied pair of like
those slide on booties, there should be blood evidence in the car.
Yes. And there was nothing in his trunk. They've taken the car apart, top from bottom. The only scenario possible is that before he got into his car, he had a garbage bag.
He put all the clothes he was wearing in a garbage bag and drove off basically in his underwear.
And that was clean.
But where is the clothes he was wearing that night?
Where is the garbage bag?
Where is the murder weapon?
No one can find it.
They've been looking for two years now, two and a half years, and they don't have a trace.
I mean, he did quite a job of disposing of that murder weapon and those clothes.
That's all you'd need.
I mean, it'd be a ballgame.
He'd be done.
He'd be total toast.
I've often wondered if he managed to put it up in a tree somehow, like instead of down, instead of digging ground, which if they'd gotten enough
search crews out there might've been identified. Is there any chance he went up with it?
I think he probably threw it into the Snake River. He was driving back. The Snake River
sort of came by the territory, could have just tossed it anywhere near there.
It's so risky.
Or it is possible that he went up to that park that he's using as his alibi. He could have just tossed it anywhere near there. Or it is possible that he went up to that park
that he's using as his alibi. He could have gone to that park after the murder as he's driving
around perhaps, and then left it somewhere up there. It's just mind boggling. There's so much
blood. The house is bleeding. Four dead young 20s, um, in the course of 12 minutes, there would be blood
all over you. How, how did he get it to the point where there was no blood in the car? I just,
that's a big mystery for me. It's a big question in this case. Okay. But let's talk about question
for the jury. Yeah. On the subject of blood, what you were going to say, we learned about those two,
two other spots of blood. Yeah. In the course of the hearing on January 23rd,
Ann Taylor, Kohlberger's attorney,
revealed that there has been blood found in the house
belonging to two unknown males.
The blood was found on a banister, a handrail,
going up to the second floor,
and also inside a glove
outside the front of the house.
Blood from two unknown people.
Now, this was a party house,
so you can imagine there'd be fingerprints on the handrail,
but what reason is there for blood?
And what reason is there to be blood on the glove?
And if it belonged to someone who had gone to the house during
one of the parties, well, how hard would it have been for the authorities to track down the fraternity
boys who came in and out of the house and get blood samples from them? But to this day,
two and a half years later, they still have not been able to identify the blood.
When the judge heard this, he said in open court, are you saying that Kohlberger had
other people working with him? This doesn't mean Kohlberger wasn't involved, but there could have
been accomplices. Accomplices, this throws out a new mystery into the case. And here is how Ann Taylor is using it. She says the real question is,
how did the knife sheath get there? She is now going to argue in the course of the trial that
these two unknown male, either one of them or both of them, put the knife sheath on the bed.
They were involved in the murder. And Koberger, prior to the murder,
had somehow innocently touched the knife sheath. The DNA on the knife sheath is just touch DNA.
And she is claiming that, or will claim at the trial, that this was done innocently by Koberger.
It's an argument that can raise a lot of doubts, I believe, in a jury's
mind. And the prospect that there could have been accomplices in the murder further complicates the
case. Did the prosecution, did the FBI do any genetic genealogy on the DNA from the blood? All I know is what was revealed in the court and the court referred to it
as unknown males. And, you know, it seems that they can't track it down. Any theories on how,
not one, but two men's DNA got on this crime scene, Howard? Well, I'll throw out a hypothesis.
And again, it's just a hypothesis. And maybe it's
a sketchy one. But I believe Koberger was guilty. I can't get around the cheek swab DNA that ties
him there. So if he was out to commit the perfect crime, if he was a student of forensics,
he could have taken a vial of blood with him. He could have put it on the banister. He could have taken a vial of blood with him. He could have put it on the banister.
He could have taken a glove with blood already embedded in it and left it at the crime scene.
And he could have done this deliberately to put this police authorities to look for two
other people.
And he would have meanwhile been just got away with it.
And it all would have worked if he hadn't left the
knife sheath behind. It's a fascinating theory. You, all I could think of when you were saying
it was of course, the famous Johnny Cochran, if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.
I bet you anything that glove does not fit Brian Kohlberger's hand.
And you know, if this is true,
right? Like what, what if he has this, you know, he's just getting his PhD in criminology.
He's a TA in criminology. All he does is study crime. And apparently he was very good,
a very good student of it. Very annoying and irritating to everybody he worked with
at, uh, wash Washington university. But what if, what if he really did do that? What if somehow he had
access to somebody's blood? I don't know how he would have gotten it, but there is some speculation
this may not have been his first crime. If this was his crime, it was so meticulous and well-handled.
Perhaps this wasn't his first rodeo. And what if that really was like an homage almost,
you know, the two gloves, reasonable doubt? Right. And it would have worked. almost, you know, the two gloves, reasonable doubt. Right. And, and, and
it would have worked. And, you know, the police to this day can't identify whose blood that was.
And again, if he hadn't left the knife sheath there, I don't think they would have been able
to ever get to him. My God, such a colossal error on his part. I know this is a weird place to go, but I'd give anything to have been there when he realized he forgot it.
You know, to see the look come over his face when he realized his perfect crime had been foiled by him.
Losing something as basic as the knife sheath, as incriminating as the knife sheath, and then
just praying to God that all the times he handled it with gloves on protected him from fingerprints
or anything that would tie him to it. And yet he wasn't careful enough. And yet if his lawyers can
get the evidence on the knife sheath thrown out because of fbi overzealousness uh it wouldn't turn the whole case
upside down and an innocent man could be found i mean a guilty man could be found not not innocent
but not guilty not guilty all right now we have to talk about the eyewitness but before we do
i want to say this is the first time i really, really thought about the DNA now that they've been caught, right? The FBI, they shouldn't have used those private
company databases. They did. They're obviously much bigger because a lot more people would
give their DNA if they knew it was going to stay private and not be available to law enforcement.
So they did. And that's how they found Brian Kohlberger's dad. Um, to me,
there's actually no chance of the judge suppressing the genetic genealogy, the touch DNA or anything
because of that, because that is a violation of the terms of service. I assume it's ancestry DNA
and 23 and me, I don't know, but I, it's my heritage. It's my heritage DNA. That was the one site that was
cited in court. Okay. So that's a violation of the terms of service of that company. That company
has rules that law enforcement's not supposed to go on there. But I don't think there's a law
saying you've broken the law as a cop. If you go on there. It's just like the cop violated a term of service of
a private company. So that's between the cop and the company. Maybe the police department gets sued
over that, but I don't see how that helps the defendant whose DNA was uploaded.
I agree with you. I think they're just trying to create as many arguments as they can to force the defense,
trying to force the issue.
I do think Kohlberger's relatives, if they wanted to, could sue the police department,
the FBI, who did this.
I think the FBI agents who did this could be reprimanded by the Justice Department.
Those things could happen, but I don't think it will affect Kohlberger's case.
But again, I was totally surprised that the judge left open the possibility of a Franks
hearing.
And if this happens, if there is a Franks hearing, then it's potentially a whole new
ballgame.
So interesting.
OK, let's get to Dylan Mortensen, right? Who is the eyewitness that he went in,
in the middle of the night, he killed four roommates, but there was one roommate.
There's another roommate who wasn't there. And there was this roommate, Dylan shown here.
And she is what they called an eyewitness in the affidavit. She said she saw a man of medium build with bushy eyebrows wearing like a COVID mask
that they made eye contact with one another. She was frozen in a frozen shock phase.
And he went by her. She went back into her room. She locked the door. She stayed in her room until
almost noon the next day as her roommates were bleeding to death. No one can understand the
decision making, but no one's been in such a situation. I don't understand what happened
with Dylan. No one does. But talk about like your witness collapsing. She may not even be
able to give the prosecution what I just said. Exactly. What happened was, what you related
was happened in the first interview
the police had with Dylan.
Over that week and the next week that followed,
there were three more interviews.
Those three interviews, she seemed to change her story.
She said that perhaps it was sort of a dream she was seeing.
She couldn't be sure.
Then she said that
one of the victims had gone down the stairs and that wasn't possible because the victim had died
in her bed. And then she admitted finally that she was just too drunk. Too drunk was the words
that Ann Taylor used to come to any reasonable consideration of what happened that night.
And then finally, on the fourth interview, just before they were going to arrest Koberger in Pennsylvania,
the Idaho cops showed her a picture of Koberger and asked, can you identify him?
And she said, no, I can't. And that really, really weakens her use as a witness between being too drunk,
between saying that she might've been dreaming the whole thing and then being, not being able to
identify the photograph. Well, the prosecution's big witness has, I don't know, even know if she'll
testify at the trial. I don't know if she will either. And that may have been the point of her changing her testimony,
like picture a scenario in which she's just too terrified to sit in a courtroom across from this
guy. And also in front of the public, which I mean, she didn't have anything to do with these
crimes. It's just, you know, there's a fair amount of like, what kind of a person would go back into their room and not call 911 after, you know, she's saying she's so afraid of this person, she went into
shock. You know, it's just hard to understand. I'm not trying to be unforgiving. I don't want to,
you know, pune her character. I mean, who knows what's going on in anyone's mind,
but not only does she not call the police for eight hours, the first
people she calls are not an ambulance, not the police, but she calls fraternity people
to come and come to the house. They come and they call the police.
And they are the ones we believe now, Howard, who found the bodies?
Yes. There's a new video that just was released last week, and you can see Ethan's twin brother, they actually were triplets, sitting outside the house the moment of the big mysteries, that it was somebody else.
It wasn't Dylan who called 911 when ultimately the authorities were called, and we didn't know who it was.
But now we believe it was the fraternity brothers who she called to come over to the house.
Yes, the fraternity brother, the actual fraternity brother who made the call was Ethan's best friend.
And the police have never released that 911 call.
I imagine it will be played at the trial.
That is unbelievable.
So she is saying she doesn't know if she actually saw him
or if it was her mind playing with her.
She conceded that she had a lot to drink
and was too inebriated to remember anything that happened
that night with any authority.
And when they showed her a photo of Kohlberger after the fact, she failed to identify him as the intruder she had seen.
These are terrible facts.
Not a very good witness.
No, no, she's not going to be helpful at all.
And it's unfortunate their case doesn't rise or fall on
her. But boy, you'd much rather have her say, I'll never forget those bushy eyebrows. And if I see
those eyes again, I'll know them and then say, there they are right there at defense table.
Right. And what's making all these doubts about the case have even more weight, there's a bill
that's just been introduced in the Idaho legislature, it was at the beginning of January, where
right now the death penalty is administered through a chemical injection, and then if
the chemicals aren't available, then there is a firing squad.
Well, the Idaho new bill wants to get rid of the chemical injections and just make it a firing squad. Well, the Idaho legislature new bill wants to get rid of the chemical
injections and just make it a firing squad. Wow. They want to, they are demanding their
pound of flesh in a sense. And that's going to, you know, going away on the jury too,
I think. Wow. I don't know. I'm fine with the death penalty. I really am. I like O'Reilly always
used to say he was against it because he thought it was too easy on the defendant. You know,
he wanted them to suffer in prison. I just feel like if Brian Colbert committed these crimes,
he killed these four young, beautiful people in the prime of their lives.
I'd have absolutely no qualms at all seeing him shot down by a firing squad. I might actually
celebrate it. Well, you might be able to get on the jury then.
Well, maybe I'll at least go out there. I don't know. I just feel like I have no empathy for a
person like that. Again, it's not totally consistent with my Catholic faith, but
that's just how I genuinely feel. I just feel like those people shouldn't be allowed to roam
the earth any longer. But I have to be honest, I don't like the fact that all the supporting evidence is falling apart.
And, you know, when we talk about how the cheek swab matched Brian Kohlberger, what we're saying is that the cheek swab, Brian Kohlberger's DNA was definitely on the knife sheath.
That's what that proves.
It was his DNA on the knife sheath.
But let's be honest.
All that really proves is that he touched that knife sheath at some point.
It does not kill or murder.
Exactly.
Ann Taylor's big question and which her defense is all going to be based around is how did the knife sheath get in that bedroom?
Who could have put it there?
It wasn't Brian Koberger.
Right. And if there's, you know, if like if the car evidence is falling apart, right, like it's true, you can never see the driver and nor the license plate.
Right. You can't see the license plate.
No, you can't see the license plate. You can't see the driver. And it took the FBI three shots until they were able to identify the car. So Ann Taylor was going to argue it took the
FBI three times, maybe should have taken them four times and they would have finally gotten it right.
And then the cell phone hits. They're helpful, but they're not ballgame.
But without a motive, without a connection. Go ahead. What were you going to say?
The cell phone hits are 10 miles in a town like Moscow. You could be, you know, on the other side of town seeing someone. I mean, that's what Ann Taylor said at the hearing. Did
the prosecution push back at that on that at all? Because I've definitely heard prosecutors argue,
no, they're, they can be more specific than that. That was so interesting to me at the hearing, the prosecution didn't really argue any of
her points. When she said it was an outright lie, that was her words, outright lie, that
he had stalked any of the victims, they didn't argue. They went along with that. That there
was no blood evidence, they didn't argue. There were no dog hairs found anywhere on
Kohlberger. They didn't argue. They seem to be
conceding all these points except for the DNA evidence. That's not good enough. That's not
good enough because it'd be one thing if his blood were at the scene and they, and that was a match
to the cheek swab. What we're saying the cheek swab, swab matched was that one piece of touch
DNA on the knife sheath, which I realize is a
good fact for the prosecution, but it's not ballgame. It's maybe, maybe he somehow touched
the knife at a friend's house. Maybe he touched it in a store. Maybe I know he purchased a knife
on Amazon that appears to have been a K bar knife, but maybe somebody stole that knife from him.
There's a lot of loops. The prosecution is going to have to close.
I mean, you're a good lawyer. You're raising all the right questions. And now that unknown male blood has been found in the house, that raises
the possibility of accomplices, other people there on the murder night, because it's not fingerprints
that were found. It's blood. Would you leave blood at a party? I don't know. Mm hmm. But back
to our my favorite piece of evidence, the fact that he was shoving his garbage into little baggies for disposal in the neighbor's trash.
The cops had already realized he was disposing of his trash in the neighbors.
The night the FBI raided his parents home in the Poconos back home in Pennsylvania when he went on winter break is just absolutely devastating, though I will acknowledge it is possible a crafty defense attorney will find
some willing family member or someone to say there was a reason for that. Like he he's he's got OCD.
He always did this. He'd done it for years. We didn't know why. I don't know why that then if
he had to put his things in Ziploc baggies, he couldn't have put it out in his own trash,
had to go in the neighbor's trash.
But that's a terrible fact for the defense.
Well, the defense is going to try to get around that in one way, is that Koberger's family, parents lived in a sort of gated community.
And they had a garbage service.
The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police got Koberger's garbage from this garbage service. The FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police got the Kohlberger's garbage
from this garbage company. The defense is going to claim they did not have a valid
search warrant, a valid warrant to get this garbage from the private carting company.
I don't know if that's going to hold up in court, but that's the argument they're going to raise. So the best case scenario there would be they exclude the fact that they found the
Kohlberger's trash in the neighbor's trash bin, but it would not exclude them finding him shoving
his trash into individual Ziploc baggies at the moment of the arrest in the middle of the night.
That sounds like a criminal with something to hide,
not an honest criminology student
who's been wrongly accused.
I agree, but at the same time,
he's a very strange young man.
He has visual snow.
He was a heroin addict.
He has strange practices.
He goes off at four in the morning
to look at stars in a wilderness park on a foggy
night. Would he put his garbage into separate bags? Who knows? My God, this is Howard's just
giving us a preview of how this is going to sound a trial. I mean, it's going to be a very
interesting trial. Uh, even the jury selection is going to be interesting. And they're going to,
like, this is a good preview because Ann Taylor is going to pick apart every piece of the prosecution's case.
Like every piece, nothing will be allowed without objection, without a counter narrative.
And all she needs is one juror.
She just needs one to say, I don't have total confidence.
I have reasonable doubt.
And in a murder case, you really got to be sure if you're sending someone off either for a lethal injection or a firing squad, you want to make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're doing the right thing.
Oh, my God. This makes me feel sick. I have like acid in my stomach from this discussion. I just I wish they had more.
I know. No, it's it was an important hearing. You learned a ton. We corresponded privately. I was like, oh my God, well, we've all been paying attention to Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Stuff's really been happening in this very
important case that, I mean, truly this is, we laugh because it's like now it's easier to just
talk about the legalities of it. But these four beautiful college students, and once again,
they are Madison Mogan, Kayleigh Gonsalves, Zanna Cronodal, and Ethan Chapin, murdered right in the
prime of their life,
November 2022. And their families deserve justice. And they deserved it before this August. It's been
too long. Did they talk at all about moving the trial date or do we think it's on for August?
Well, they're trying. I think it will take place. I don't think this judge is going to delay any
longer, but the defense is still asking for more time. We'll see if he grants it. I don't
believe he will, but I was surprised he raised the possibility of a Franks hearing. That shocked me.
Yep. The families deserve, just let's have a trial. There's nothing that's going to be gained
by a delay by the defense or the prosecution, frankly. Thank you so much, Howard Bloom. And people can get your
latest reporting on this case in airmail? In airmail and in my book, When the Night Comes
Falling. Awesome. Okay. Check out his book. I've read it. It was great. And airmail is a
subscription publication that you can get. Just Google it and you'll see it's run by Graydon
Carter, former guy behind Vanity Fair. Thanks to all of you for watching
and listening. And don't forget, we will be back in just a couple of hours with our full show.
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