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The accused Idaho student killer Brian Koberger was back in court today. Appearing in a Moscow, Idaho courtroom for a pretrial hearing as his lawyers prepare to defend him against four counts of first-degree murder and now the death penalty. This is The Idaho Massacre, a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Episode 10, Building a Defense.
I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell. When Brian Kohlberger walked into the courtroom on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 27th, he looked different. He carried himself differently. Flanked by his defense team, Ann Taylor, Jay Logsdon, and Alyssa Masseth, Kohlberger entered the courtroom wearing a dark suit and tie with a white dress shirt.
His face was clean-shaven, his hair styled with gel. Gone was the bright orange prison jumpsuit that the 28-year-old quadruple murder suspect had worn for most of his previous court appearances. In another world, the former PhD criminology student looked like he could be testifying as an expert witness for another case, rather than appearing as a murder suspect.
But on June 27th, Koberger, who was accused of brutally murdering Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodle, and Nathan Chapin, was simply in the Aleda County courtroom to listen to his lawyers begin to lay out their defense and fight to keep him from being executed. All rise. Thank you very much. You can proceed in.
Good afternoon, everybody. So this is State of Idaho versus Brian Koberger. Mr. Koberger is in the Corps.
In the days leading up to this much-anticipated hearing, there was speculation that Koberger's defense team would ask the judge to force the prosecution to provide information and documents on a wide range of topics. However, before the defense and prosecution made their presentations to Judge John Judge, he first addressed the issue of cameras in the courtroom.
A month earlier, Koberger's defense team had asked the judge to remove press cameras. They worried the continued focus on Koberger might prejudice potential jurors against Koberger at his trial. Especially as analysts, legal commentators, and social media influencers pick apart Koberger's body language and every blink of his eye.
Yet a month after the defense made the request, the judge had not made a decision, instead opting to warn at the start of the hearing about how the media should conduct themselves and cover the courtroom.
I have deferred my decision about cameras. One of the things that's going to be really important, that is very important, is that the people with the camera and media need to follow the rules. And we've had some issues where people were pushing the envelope.
particularly focusing on the tables where counsel sits. I would prefer, if you want to continue to have cameras in this courtroom, is to back off, make sure that we just have the totality of what is happening in the court and not just focus, for example, on Mr. Kohlberger's face.
With the media warned, the hearing turned to the defense's motions.
In the days leading up to this much-anticipated hearing, there was speculation that Kohlberger's defense team would ask the judge to force the prosecution to provide information and documents on a wide range of topics, from the investigation into the suspected white vehicle, to the grand jury proceedings, to cell phone data, to the FBI's DNA records. For weeks, Kohlberger's defense team had been sending signals that they were unhappy with the slow pace that the prosecution had been turning over key documents.
Here's defense attorney Ann Taylor. And during the course of the last several months, there has been a lot of discovery that's been requested and a lot that's been supplied.
I come here asking the court to compel discovery. I'm seeking an order directing that we receive this discovery. I'm not seeking any other kind of sanction. I don't come here saying that the prosecutor has done something wrong. I come here saying that there are things that we have a disagreement about whether I should get them or when I should get them and we seek a court order to assist us in this regard.
Once the hearing started, defense attorney Ann Taylor limited the scope of her request to two single topics. First, she requested the prosecution turn over the investigative and training records for three specific Idaho police officers. I wanted the court and counsel to be aware it's not a fishing expedition. These are real items that are really necessary to investigate this case and to prepare Mr. Cooper's defense.
Taylor argued the defense needed more information about the criminal investigation that led to Koberger's arrest in December of 2022 and these three officers since they were at the center of that investigation. Taylor said one officer interviewed a key witness at the scene of the murders and another conducted dozens of interviews with witnesses and attended the victims' autopsies.
Your Honor, we have not asked for training records for every officer that has had anything to do with the case. I would not want to stand here and let the court think that this is an exhaustive list of the officers that we might need training records for. But these are three officers that we've requested it for, and the state has indicated they're not willing to get us their training records.
These three officers are officers that have each conducted critical interviews with critical witnesses in the case, made decisions about the interviews, made decisions about evidence, and conducted other kinds of investigations. We seek their training records to understand their processes.
Taylor added that this request is not unusual, nor did she believe it was a particularly difficult request.
I have often received training records for Idaho State Police officers in the preparation of other cases during the course of my career. They are imperative for us to understand the specialty in interrogating and interviewing people and for making the decisions that they make with regard to things taken as evidence in the case or things followed up on or not followed up on.
Lata County Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings, however, responded and said that none of these officers would be called to testify at the trial and that hundreds of officers worked on the investigation that led to the arrest of Brian Kopiker. She said she feared this motion could become a burden for the prosecution. Our concern with...
allowing training records for these few, which we can't understand why there's a substantial need for these particular ones, wouldn't open the door to us then having to go and obtain training records for these hundreds of investigating officers who've been involved, some of which are outside of our control. Taylor pushed back on this concern and reminded the court that Koberger was facing the death penalty.
And as the court is aware, the state has filed its notice of intent to seek death against Mr. Koldover. These are critical, relevant materials. All of them, including the police training records. They're necessary for us to prepare and present our defense against Mr. Koldover. They're necessary for us to do our investigation. They're necessary for us to prepare our case and our motion practice meeting. These are things that we need to have.
Judge Don Judge said he would consider both sides of the argument and would issue a written decision at a later date.
After asking the court to force the prosecution to provide the Idaho police training records, Ann Taylor also asked the judge to rule on two previous requests regarding FBI records. Taylor asked for records from the FBI's cellular analysis survey team. The CAS team had been brought in to help process data from Koberger's mobile phone. These are bits of investigation that the FBI conducted that relate to
Mr. Koberger's cell phone, and the state has relied on that in their affidavit to say that Mr. Koberger was in certain places at certain times. The original requests for FBI cell phone data and white Hyundai vehicle information was made weeks prior. So these are bits of information and analysis that's been done since December. We are now at the end of June.
We do not have those records yet, runner. They are something that's been relied upon by the state for the PCF data to arrest Mr. Koberger, as well as to obtain a variety of search warrants. It's information that the state has agreed we should have. So we ask the court for an order with a deadline with that.
Prosecution, however, insisted they had turned over everything in their possession. We have discovered approximately about 13,000 pages of reports, 13,000 photographs, over 10,000 tips, and over 51 terabytes of audio and video information. Ms. Taylor has everything that we have.
Judge John Judge ruled on the spot for the defense and suggested the FBI documents relating to the cell phone data and white Hyundai Elantra vehicle information should be turned over no later than July 14th.
Here's Jeff and Stephanie. Since we haven't had a substantial update on this case in a while, there was a lot of hype for this hearing. And while it was substantial, it didn't quite have the same oomph we thought it might. To your point, it was extremely short, just 30 minutes.
For note, pretrial hearings can last anywhere from two minutes to two hours, depending upon the complexity of the case. But since there was seemingly a lot to cover, this went much shorter than expected. Well, that could be because a lot of what we thought might get brought up didn't. Remember, three days after the announcement of the indictment back in May, the defense asked for 34 specific pieces of information from the grand jury proceedings. All of the transcripts, recordings, and evidence, even the jurors' names.
Originally, the defense request for grand jury information was supposed to be part of the hearing on the 27th, but then it wasn't. Though it does appear that the lawyers are talking behind the scenes to try to come up with an agreement on this issue. The other big issue that we thought was going to be part of the hearing, and this is a big one,
was the defense's request for the documents related to the DNA and the FBI's effort to build out this family tree like we discussed earlier. That family tree is what led investigators to Koberger. The state ended up asking for more time to respond, and the judge granted it. But the issue of the DNA, how it was collected, how it was handled, and how it was used seems to be a growing issue, and it is not going away anytime soon.
So I believe there has to be a pretrial hearing in terms of determining whether or not this is good or whether it is outside the ability to say, yes, the procedure they used was proper and the eventual swab that they use for traditional DNA is admissible. That's going to be a serious, because this is a DNA case.
Since the first time DNA was used in 1987 to convict a suspect in the United States, DNA has played a major role in criminal investigations and in securing convictions.
While the statistical connection between the DNA taken from the knife sheath found at the crime scene and the DNA taken from Brian Koberger's cheek seems very straightforward and in line with how DNA is usually used in criminal investigations, attorney and former prosecutor Steven Greenberg says there could be a small chance this DNA evidence is not even admissible at Koberger's trial because of the unique role the FBI played in narrowing the search down to Brian Koberger.
Here's Steven Greenberg. It has to be a pretrial hearing in terms of whether or not the DNA evidence will be admissible at all because of the way they got there. There's a number of issues that come into play because if you remember, they tried a whole number of things before they outsourced this to the Bureau. And let's remember this. You know, the FBI is federal. This is not a federal case. There's no U.S. attorney involved.
This is a state prosecution in a small town in Idaho, and I'm not so sure how sophisticated the police and prosecutors are. It was a chain of custody issue because, you know, they sent this thing out and who knows where it went? Who knows who who was using it? Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
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MITRE's mission is to solve problems for a safer world. If you have a passion for applied cybersecurity with skills in infrastructure threat intelligence, deterrence technologies, advisal threat emulation, or intelligence analysis, explore the many challenging and fulfilling career opportunities at MITRE.org slash careers. That's M-I-T-R-E dot org slash careers.
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After local investigators found the knife sheath cover under Madison Mogan's comforter, they checked it for DNA and found a very small amount on the button of the knife sheath. Investigators then ran the DNA through a national criminal database, but the DNA from the knife sheath did not produce any matches.
Instead of giving up, the DNA information was then sent to the FBI, who passed it on to a private laboratory named Othram, which then began to look for relatives of the DNA sequence in publicly available genealogy databases. Ultimately, genetic genealogists combed through hundreds of names connected to the DNA and narrowed down the likely DNA profile to Brian Koberger.
Greenberg says because this type of genetic genealogy method is so new and untested in the courts, the defense will likely challenge its admissibility in a pretrial hearing and will put both FBI and Othram officials under oath.
It will have to be evidentiary hearings because it's all going to go to the issue of whether the court's going to let in this evidence. The judge will have to have pre-trial hearings and these people will be on the stand because it goes to the heart of the case in terms of the issues that we've been talking about. So now they'll take the stand pre-trial and they'll take the stand during the trial. And even if the judge allows the DNA to be used in the trial, Koberger's defense is likely to challenge it at every turn.
There were a universe of other people who came up when they did the nontraditional, okay, the genetic. And why can't we have those names? Did they follow up on anybody other than this one defendant? So yeah, the issues, even if the judge allows it in, that will be cross-examination material for the defense. So if the main issue and the only issue by which a jury can find this guy guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is DNA, however, all they need is, right, one juror for a mistrial.
And if the judge does let it in, it's still going to be a serious, they're going to open on it, they're going to cross-examine on it, and they're going to close on it because that's the case.
The Koberger defense team cannot challenge the DNA in a pretrial hearing until it receives all of the FBI and author and paperwork from the prosecution. And so far, the prosecution has refused to turn over the FBI documents, claiming they don't have the information, hinting that the FBI hadn't or wouldn't turn over the information. Instead, the prosecution has asked the judge to allow for more time to respond to the defense's request.
Greenberg says the delay in turning over DNA information is unusual and unlike the FBI, which has a long history of being on the cutting edge of using science to solve crimes. Makes no sense to me. Well, let's remember this. The responsibility is the prosecutors. The FBI here was acting as an independent contractor, right? They weren't investigating the case as they would if it were a federal case. They were just asked to do this one particular task.
So whoever they reported to was somebody in the prosecutor's office. It's the prosecutor's responsibility to see to it that they get all the information they need. Would the FBI actually withhold information from the people who hired them to do the lab work, that being the prosecutor? Makes no sense to me. No sense at all.
And if for some reason the FBI is reluctant and doesn't want to turn over the genetic genealogy information, Greenberg says the Bureau won't have a choice if the judge orders the information to be turned over to the defense. Everybody who was within the jurisdiction of that court, which obviously the FBI in this case is because they put themselves into the case. The law of the case is what the judge says it is. He says turn it over, they turn it over.
But with the start of the trial nearing, the clock is ticking, and every day which the defense is without this key DNA information makes the October 2nd start date for the trial more and more unlikely. Koberger's lawyers asked, and the judge said yes. One week after the June 27th pretrial hearing, Brian Koberger's defense team scored a small but potentially important victory.
Judge John Judge ruled that the prosecution must give the Coburgers defense team access to the training records of the three Idaho police investigators the defense team deemed are at the center of the investigation.
The judge set a July 14th deadline, writing that the defense adequately articulated the role each of the officers played in interviewing witnesses and finding and collecting potential evidence. However, the issue of the FBI DNA documentation was still left unresolved.
It's an important victory. And the reason is, what they're going to try to prove is that either these police officers who were first on the scene were inexperienced, or that these police on the scene at first didn't follow whatever training information they were given. But the long and short of it is, there's going to be a serious issue about how the crime scene was handled and how well-trained
These particular officers were. And obviously the judge felt this was important or he wouldn't have ordered the turnover of this material. Defense attorney Ann Taylor argued a week earlier at the pretrial hearing that the defense needed to better understand the methods the investigators used to exclude other suspects and to zero in on Koberger. Stephanie and Jeff, followed by Steven Greenberg.
Does this mean that the defense is going to go after the detectives? Are they just trying to question the motives of the detectives? It seems like such a stretch. It reminds me of the OJ Simpson trial, for example, when they went after LAPD detective Mark Furman back in the day. Again, is this strategy or a stretch?
The defense's job is to explore every possible angle, and we don't know exactly what their strategy is yet, but this request certainly points in that direction. All that to be said, it must be so difficult for the family members to be listening to all of the back and forth, and we just want to be clear that our hearts go out to all of them.
Is the defense going to go after the police? Well, they're not going to go after the police per se, but they're going to go after the individual officers who are responsible for being the first on this crime scene and handling evidence.
In a previous court filing, the defense tried to undermine and poke holes in the state's case against Kopberger by accusing the prosecution of not being transparent and hiding their entire case. They have also, in pretrial motions, raised issues about how investigators used the DNA sample to zero in on Kopberger.
Attorney Steven Greenberg says this is likely part of a defense strategy to attack not the final conclusions of the DNA results, but the initial process of collecting and analyzing the DNA from the crime scene.
I do believe that if the judge lets in the DNA evidence, things like this in terms of casting doubt on how the entire investigatory process was handled goes into this whole issue of is the DNA any good or is it not any good? Did they purposely focus on this guy? Are there other putative defendants out there? So that is why the judge, I believe, turned it over. And I think it's an important victory for the public defender's office. Is it a good idea to go after the police?
And I would say, if you're an inexperienced lawyer, yeah, you might do that. An experienced lawyer will not go after the police per se as a particular group of individuals who are responsible for taking care of our safety, but rather the particular officers who are involved. Let's stop here for another break. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
Well, I don't know about you, but like I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, every age? That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
MITRE is investing in a massive AI supercomputer to power a new federal AI sandbox. With AI's potential to drive transformational advances across industries, MITRE's expertise in healthcare, cybersecurity, transportation, finance, climate, and national security will be critical. Transform your career while helping solve problems for a safer world. Visit MITRE.org slash careers. That's M-I-T-R-E dot org slash careers.
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One week after the hearing, as Americans across the country were celebrating the Fourth of July, an eerie video was uploaded to the internet.
The leaked surveillance footage from a nearby apartment complex at 1330 Linda Lane appears to capture the moments before, during, and after the Grizzly murders. The security camera is from a parking lot just a few hundred yards away from the three-story house on King Road, and it is just one of several camera views investigators have access to.
This video cannot be independently verified and due to the gag order, a verification is unlikely. Though it is timestamped Sunday, November 13th, 2022 and begins at 3:59 in the morning. Since being posted, this video has been removed countless times. Much of what appears in the footage lines up with official statements from the probable cause affidavit.
In fact, the leaked video seems to validate key parts of the PCA. On an otherwise dark and quiet night, the first sign of movement in the video comes at roughly 4:05 a.m. A light, possibly white sedan pulls up on the street in front of the camera. Its headlights light up the screen. The vehicle stops for a few seconds, at least five, before turning around and driving away.
According to the probable cause affidavit, suspect vehicle 1, as Koberger's car is described by the document, was seen on other cameras in the area as early as 3:29 a.m. The PCA says vehicle 1 makes three initial passes by the 1122 King Road residence.
Then, during a fourth pass at 4:04 AM, vehicle number one is seen unsuccessfully trying to park in front of a nearby apartment complex before turning around. This appears to be the sequence caught on the leaked video.
About 90 seconds later, at 4:07 a.m., there is a sound of a short car horn and the camera at 13:30 Linda Lane again captures a vehicle driving by. This time the vehicle does not stop and instead continues driving back towards King Road, though it isn't clear if this is vehicle number one and Brian Kobriger. The PCA does not mention a fifth loop around the neighborhood. At 4:13 a.m., the camera appears to pick up the sound of a car.
That could possibly be Zanna Kernodle's food driver departing after dropping off her DoorDash order at 4:12 a.m. Over the course of the next few minutes, the camera picks up multiple sounds. Though none are clear, there are odd sounds.
and thuds. At 4:21 a.m., there is a loud sound that appears to be a car quickly moving. According to the probable cause affidavits, this sound happens at the exact time another camera angle shows suspect vehicle 1 leaving the neighborhood at a very high rate of speed. But this isn't the final sound.
Roughly two minutes later, at 4:23, at the exact time investigators say the crime was ending, someone gets into a large dark vehicle, likely an SUV, outside of the Lindelands security camera. First you hear the door slamming, then the engine starting. The car leaves quickly, but by no means is it speeding away or driving recklessly out of the parking lot. So who was this person? Did they live in one of the nearby apartments?
Where were they going and where had they been? There is no mention of anyone else in the probable cause affidavit. Were they just an innocent bystander completely unaware of the horrific murders that had just happened a few yards away? And did police identify this individual and the vehicle?
Did police talk to and clear this person? Or was this individual somehow connected to the brutal murders of four young students with a lifetime of opportunity ahead of them? Did Brian Koberger have an accessory to murder? And is there DNA that can prove it? More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt underscore studios.
The Idaho Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Connor Powell, Chris Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa. Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
On our new podcast, True Crimes with John and Deanna, we're turning our online investigative skills to some of the most unexplained,
unsolved, and most ignored cases. I've heard that there's a house that has some bodies in the basement. I just knew something was wrong, and it was later that night that Jared had been killed. Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted attack. This is very active, so we have to be careful. Listen to True Crimes with John and Deanna every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
♪♪
Police say 33-year-old Bridegan was shot dead. Gunned down in front of his two-year-old daughter. Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted attack. It appears to be an execution-style assassination. This is very active, so we have to be careful. I've heard that there's a house that has some bodies in the basement. I knew. I just knew something was wrong. Maybe there's something more sinister at play than just one young girl going missing. If you know something, heard something, please...
It's never too late to do the right thing. This is True Crimes with John and Deanna. The production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Justice is something that takes different shapes or forms.
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