The Terrible Night On King Road

Summary

Dateline NBC: The Terrible Night On King Road

Release Date: May 13, 2025

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Introduction

In the harrowing episode of Dateline NBC titled "The Terrible Night On King Road," host Keith Morrison and Lester Holt delve deep into the tragic murders of four college students in Moscow, Idaho. This detailed investigation uncovers new evidence, explores the psyche of the accused, Bryan Kohberger, and examines the profound impact on the community and the victims' families.

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Background of the Crime

On a cold night in November 2022, the peaceful college town of Moscow, Idaho, was shattered by the brutal murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Goncalves, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. The victims were found in a student boarding house located at 1122 King Road, a place once known for its vibrant social gatherings and now infamous for the unspeakable violence that occurred within its walls.

Notable Quote:

"What happens to these young people is a scene from a horror movie. And yet it was real."
— Lester Holt [03:37]

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Bryan Kohberger's Profile

Bryan Kohberger, a 27-year-old criminology student from Pennsylvania, became the prime suspect in the murders. Once an awkward individual who struggled socially and with self-image, Kohberger underwent a dramatic physical transformation by losing over 100 pounds and overcoming a heroin addiction. His dedication to his studies earned him a place in the PhD program at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, just a short distance from the crime scene.

Notable Quote:

"His body becomes a temple. He's eating vegan, he's working out. So he's created this other individual."
— Lester Holt [08:02]

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The Night of the Murders

The night of the murders was marked by a series of unusual activities by Kohberger. Surveillance footage revealed his white Hyundai Elantra circling King Road multiple times, suggesting meticulous planning. On the night in question, after attending a football game, Kohberger's car was seen speeding towards the boarding house with a Marine Corps Ka Bar knife in the vehicle.

Notable Quotes:

"Piece by piece? And if one card falls, then the house can fall."
— Lester Holt [10:37]

"By 4am Most people inside the house were in their rooms... One source described a hell of a fight ensued."
— Keith Morrison [46:42]

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Investigation and Evidence

The investigation unveiled a wealth of evidence linking Kohberger to the murders. Notably, DNA found on a knife sheath matched the DNA profile of Kohberger’s father, raising significant suspicions. Additionally, Kohberger's browsing history on his phone included searches related to serial killers like Ted Bundy and terms such as "forced," "drugged," and "sleeping," indicating a possible obsession with control and domination.

Notable Quote:

"These are all themes of power, domination, and control."
— Lester Holt [24:44]

Moreover, cell tower data placed Kohberger near the crime scene multiple times in the months leading up to the murders, all occurring after dark, which aligned with his known nocturnal habits.

Notable Quote:

"An element that's very cinematic about this whole story."
— Lester Holt [09:39]

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Arrest and Trial

Kohberger was arrested on December 29, 2022, after a meticulously coordinated operation by the FBI. The arrest was swift, capturing Kohberger as he attempted to flee, unknowingly caught on surveillance footage shortly after taking a controversial selfie. Charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, his trial has garnered nationwide attention, especially with the looming threat of the death penalty.

Notable Quote:

"Bryant Kohberger was under arrest. The news was breaking."
— Keith Morrison [72:14]

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Defense vs. Prosecution Strategies

The defense, led by attorney Ann Taylor, has focused on challenging the admissibility of the genetic genealogy evidence, arguing procedural misconduct by the FBI. They also seek to introduce an alternate suspect to create reasonable doubt. On the other hand, prosecutors aim to solidify their case by presenting the knife sheath as incontrovertible evidence linking Kohberger to the crime scene.

Notable Quotes:

"Your honor, our position is that the court should suppress the IgG identification and everything that flows from that."
— Ann Taylor [78:56]

"Your honor, the genetic genealogy evidence will be treated at the trial as just another tip that pointed out investigators in the direction of Bryan Kohberger."
— Judge Stephen Hippler [79:20]

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Community and Family Reactions

The murders have left the small community of Moscow in a state of fear and mourning. Families of the victims, particularly Ashlyn Couch and Angela Nevaeh, Maddie’s mother, have expressed profound grief and a desperate need for justice. The community grapples with the loss of its young members and the unsettling realization that such violence can strike close to home.

Notable Quotes:

"All I could think about was the kids. Those four families, I can't imagine. Sorry."
— Lester Holt [01:25]

"It's a pain inside that you can't really explain how your body's feeling."
— Angela Nevaeh [59:16]

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Future Implications

As Kohberger's trial approaches, the case highlights the complexities of modern investigations, especially concerning genetic genealogy and digital footprints. The outcome of this high-profile case may set precedents for future criminal proceedings, particularly in how evidence is gathered and presented in court.

Notable Quotes:

"We cannot know what a jury will think of the case against Bryan Coburger."
— Keith Morrison [85:15]

"It's a very common."
— Lester Holt [63:15]

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Conclusion

"The Terrible Night On King Road" serves as a chilling reminder of the darkest aspects of human behavior and the intricate processes of justice. Dateline NBC's in-depth exploration not only provides a comprehensive look into the events surrounding the murders but also offers a poignant examination of the lives forever altered by this tragedy.

Notable Final Quote:

"There's nothing that will ever take that pain away. But maybe after the trial, they'll have more better days than bad days."
— Keith Morrison [90:36]

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This episode of Dateline NBC exemplifies the meticulous journalism the program is known for, shedding light on every facet of this unsettling case and honoring the memory of the victims through a thorough and compassionate approach.

Transcript

[Lester Holt]

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Lester Holt]

Tonight, a Dateline exclusive. All I could think about was the kids. Those four families, I can't imagine. Sorry.

[Keith Morrison]

It'S just weeks away. The trial and the terrifying murders of four college students in Idaho.

[Lester Holt]

Ryan.

[Keith Morrison]

Ryan. Is it doing now?

[Lester Holt]

Startling new information.

[Keith Morrison]

Video never seen before. There's evidence to show that his car left in such a hurry he almost hit somebody.

[Lester Holt]

Yep, that's right.

[Keith Morrison]

Ominous from the suspect's phone. Images of women and serial killers Googling the words forced, passed out, drugged.

[Lester Holt]

These are all themes of power, domination and control. It was very known that Bryan Kohberger had a problem with women. I was like, he had my phone number. He had asked to hang out with me.

[Keith Morrison]

New details from inside the house.

[Lester Holt]

Something is happening. Something happened to the house.

[Keith Morrison]

What will be revealed in court.

[Lester Holt]

We came across a tip that would appear to be an alternate suspect. Justice is coming. Families deserve that. It's time.

[Keith Morrison]

The evidence, the trial, the suspect, the heartbreak. Tonight, you're inside this case like never before. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with the terrible night on King Road. And now spring has come to Moscow, Idaho, and fresh life with it. Soon, another army of Graduates will be released into the world. And not far from King Road and the infamous student boarding house where four students were murdered in November of 2022, the school has built a memorial with the trial of accused killer Bryan COBURGER now just 12 weeks away. It's the crime no one can forget.

[Lester Holt]

What happens to these young people is a scene from a horror movie. And yet it was real.

[Keith Morrison]

Yes. About which we now know more. In the two years since our last report, we have learned things, heard and seen things that have never before been reported. We've gathered this information carefully and methodically from sources with direct knowledge of the evidence. Sources we trust. What new information? Well, this for example. Never before publicly seen security videos that show a white car circling the block that terrible night, pulling up to the house just before the murders occurred and speeding away after. And these never before seen photos from Bryan Coburger's phone, we've learned from our sources about a previously unreported brutality.

[Lester Holt]

I think it's a clue there was a special anger toward that male.

[Keith Morrison]

And those same sources close to the investigation have told us which one of the four victims they believe was the intended target. 21 year old Maddie Mogan. What in the world would make anybody want to target Maddie, of all people?

[Lester Holt]

The way you describe her, she's so beautiful.

[Keith Morrison]

Maybe an ideal for someone who couldn't have that ideal. Angela Nevaeh has considered Maddie a member of her family. Her daughter Ashlyn was Maddie's best friend. The young women grew up together in Coeur d' Alene, about an hour and a half north of Moscow. Both attended the University of Idaho and were roommates in that big six bedroom house just a block from campus at 1122 King Road.

[Lester Holt]

They had coffee together, they did yoga together, they walked to class together. So when the girls would get bored in Moscow, they would come and stay with us. And my husband is like, oh no, the sorority girls are coming this weekend. Better watch out.

[Keith Morrison]

Those sorority girls included 21 year old Kaylee Goncalves and 20 year old Zanna Kernodle.

[Lester Holt]

Hi, my name is Zanna.

[Keith Morrison]

Also among the roommates on King Road.

[Lester Holt]

Where I've lived the past two years. They were so fun and just beautiful and kind, super kind, you know, rays of sunshine. But they were also motivated. So they made sure that academically their stuff was done during the week and they had fun on the weekends and they all would have graduated top in their class. They were very responsible kids.

[Keith Morrison]

Responsible, yes, but so much more. Maddie was kind of like a little sister to you. Right? Mm hmm. Katie Widmire was Maddie's boss at a clothing store in Coeur d' Alene. She knew all the roommates, invited them and their fellow sorority members to model and work at fashion related events.

[Lester Holt]

They really didn't come from extremely privileged backgrounds. They knew how to be someone, was to get an education.

[Keith Morrison]

Katie quickly recognized Maddie's potential, offered her more hours, an offer Maddie turned down.

[Lester Holt]

And I called her up and I was like, Maddie girl, why are you not taking more hours? And she said that she makes $2 more an hour at her serving job. And I was like, you know what? We would have paid you $25 an hour to stay here.

[Keith Morrison]

As the school year came to an end in the spring of 2022, Maddie, with one more year to go, was making plans for life and work after college. As was Kaylee, who had just a semester before graduation. Zanna and her boyfriend, 20 year old Ethan Chapin, had a little more time to figure out things. She was a junior, he a freshman. And what none of them knew was that across the country, another student was making plans to continue his education. Bryan Kohberger had grown up in the Pocono Mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, an awkward kid who'd struggled with his weight with girls. He'd written that he once looked in the mirror and saw a sickly, tired, useless and stupid man. But by 2022, he was 27 and Kohberger had both kicked a heroin addiction and and lost more than 100 pounds.

[Lester Holt]

He loses his weight and he turns himself into literally another person.

[Keith Morrison]

This is Howard Bloom, award winning investigative journalist and NBC News consultant. Bloom was on the ground in Idaho days after the murders and has written a book about the case. When the night comes falling, he has studied Coburger intently.

[Lester Holt]

His body becomes a temple. He's eating vegan, he's working out. So he's created this other individual.

[Keith Morrison]

And this new Brian had also found his calling. Criminology. He'd received his undergrad and master's degrees at Desales University near his home in Pennsylvania.

[Lester Holt]

His master's teachers, one of them said he was one of the two best students she ever had in 10 years.

[Keith Morrison]

And by the summer of 2022, he'd been accepted into the PhD program at Washington State University in Pullman, just a 15 minute drive across the state line from that house on King Road in Moscow. But no one knew yet. Was it Bryan Coburger, while finishing his master's degree, had gone on Amazon.com as these documents in the possession of law enforcement and obtained by Dateline show. And he'd purchased a K bar US Marine Corps knife, a knife precisely like this one, nearly eight months before the murders. Then on June 25, 2022, he used his phone to take this picture of his car, a 2015 white Hyundai Elantra, just as he pulled away from his family home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, headed toward Washington State and the fates that awaited them all.

[Lester Holt]

There is an element that's very cinematic about this whole story.

[Keith Morrison]

Cinematic, yet very raw and real and reported here for the first time. The phone calls Kohberger made in the hours after the murders. I would love to have heard that conversation. The text message to a woman who met Kohberger at a party before the murders.

[Lester Holt]

I probably would have never thought of this experience again.

[Keith Morrison]

And newly revealed photos of young women. Photos Coburger browsed on his phone.

[Lester Holt]

He's clearly trolling and getting stimulated by looking at people who, in his mind, fuel the fantasy.

[Keith Morrison]

And with the trial just weeks away, how will his attorneys defend Bryan Kohberger with the death penalty hanging over his head? How do you mount a defense to all that stuff?

[Lester Holt]

Piece by piece? And if one card falls, then the house can fall.

[Keith Morrison]

June 30, 2022. Four and a half months before the murders on King Road, Bryan Coburger pulled into the parking lot at graduate student housing in Pullman, Washington. The same day, this photo turned up on his phone. A photo of what perhaps he thought would be his home for the next few years as he worked on his PhD in criminology. We should add that the photos from Kohberger's phone throughout this story have been resized for improved quality, but are otherwise unchanged. After unpacking, he met a new neighbor who invited him to a pool party in nearby Moscow, Idaho, a place called the Grove. It was a sunny Saturday, July 9th.

[Lester Holt]

We had some friends that wanted to have a party or a get together, a barbecue.

[Keith Morrison]

This man was invited too. His name is Zach. He asked us not to use his last name for reasons of privacy.

[Lester Holt]

Some friends had invited me there to play music.

[Keith Morrison]

Zach isn't a musician, but with a doctorate in food science, he is known locally as Catalyst, the Ph dj. Zach arrived around one, set up his speakers and equipment, and then I think.

[Lester Holt]

Most people came around maybe two or three o' clock.

[Keith Morrison]

This brief bit of video shows a snippet of the actual pool party.

[Lester Holt]

There's drinks and everyone's having a good time.

[Keith Morrison]

One of the partiers was Baseth Salam.

[Lester Holt]

John, there's volleyball happening. I was like, oh, that's probably something I want to do and just hang out in the pool and have drinks.

[Keith Morrison]

But Seth was sitting in the pool shallow end, when a friend introduced him to the man's new neighbor, a guy named Brian.

[Lester Holt]

He was kind of a real pale fella. I think we've all had conversations like I've had with him, like, oh, yeah, so we have nothing in common, and that's okay.

[Keith Morrison]

So Bryan Kohberger moved on to talk to Zach.

[Lester Holt]

He kind of came up to me and asked me about DJing and really locked in. But after a while, I had to eventually ask him to let me focus on playing music because he was really invading my space at that point.

[Keith Morrison]

Before long, another partygoer arrived and encountered Bryan Kohberger. This is Holly. She also asked us not to use her last name.

[Lester Holt]

I was kind of mingling and socializing and started chatting with this guy, and he had told me that he had just moved and he was starting his PhD.

[Keith Morrison]

Holly had that in common with Bryan Kohberger. She'd also moved away from home to work on a graduate degree, hers in plant science.

[Lester Holt]

I definitely felt a little obligated to chat with him because to me, he seemed a little awkward, kind of like you might expect for a PhD student who didn't know anyone at the party and was maybe trying his best to kind of get out there and be social and make friends.

[Keith Morrison]

Holly told Brian about a hiking group she was part of. And then she did something that still makes her shiver a little.

[Lester Holt]

He had put his number into my phone, and then I had texted him my name.

[Keith Morrison]

Holly wasn't alone. Apparently, Besseth watched Bryan Coburger approach a young woman he Basseth had his eye on.

[Lester Holt]

And I was like, ah, damn. I might have dropped the ball there because I think that they might have exchanged information or phone numbers or something. I then thought, okay, well, he must not be that awkward because, I mean, he's over here talking to girls, so he might be doing okay.

[Keith Morrison]

But that wasn't all that happened to the pool party. A source close to the investigation has told us something. A party gore observed that at one point, Bryan Coburger became fixated on two young women dressed in bikinis. Fixated was the word our source used. But one of the women was married and gave her nearby husband a nonverbal signal. Rescue me. So the husband approached Kohberger, and the women jumped into the pool. But we're told that Kohberger didn't take the hint. Brushed off, the husband moved over to the edge of the pool near the women. It was all very off putting, the partygoer would later say. It was the very next day, the day after the pool party, when Holly's cell phone buzzed a message from Bryan Kohberger.

[Lester Holt]

The wording of the text, as I look back on it, is kind of peculiar.

[Keith Morrison]

Here it is, the actual text sent Jul 10, 2022 at 1:19pm quote hey, I'm pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday. I really enjoy that activity, so please let me know. Thanks.

[Lester Holt]

It was almost overly formal. I really enjoy that activity. So, you know, can you follow up with me about. About that?

[Keith Morrison]

So did Holly in fact let Brian Kohberger know about plans to hike as he had asked? No, she did not.

[Lester Holt]

There's not really a good explanation. You know, the universe intervened and for whatever reason just distracted me from further engaging in that interaction.

[Keith Morrison]

Holly never saw him again. Unlike that other partygoer, when you have already met catalyst, the Ph.D. j, he.

[Lester Holt]

Kind of approached us like we were good friends. And honestly, at that time, I had no recollection. I didn't really know who he was. I'm Dr. Jenn Ashton, your host for season two of the Visibility Gap, a podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare. Throughout this season, we'll be tackling something vital, the women's health gap. We'll hear from real people and experts as we unpack important topics like maternal health, menopause and heart disease. Listen in and download the new season wherever you get your podcasts. Nothing brings us together like Eglin's best eggs. Always so fresh and delicious. Plus superior nutrition. Like 6 times more vitamin D, 10 times more vitamin E, and 25% less satur fat compared to ordinary eggs. For us, it's eggs any style as long as they're the best. Egglin's best. Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. Visit eglinsbest.com to learn more. Hey guys, have you heard of Gold Belly? It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic famous foods from restaurants across the country, anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. Gold Belly ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels, Maine lobster rolls, and even Ina Garden's famous cakes. So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. That's goldbelly.com promo code G.

[Keith Morrison]

It was not long after the pool party at that place they called the Grove in Moscow, Idaho. The man known as Catalyst Ph DJ Ran into him again. Ran into Brian Coburger, that is.

[Lester Holt]

I was on a hike on Kamiak Butte.

[Keith Morrison]

Zach and some friends were descending Kamiak Butte, the 3,600foot summit that shoots up out of the grain fields of the Palouse, about 15 miles outside Pullman. It's a popular hiking destination. Night was closing in as they picked their way down the slope. And then there he was, Brian Kohberger. Except he was walking up the hill alone into the dark.

[Lester Holt]

And we thought that was really odd because it was late.

[Keith Morrison]

Zach didn't recognize the guy from the pool party, but Kohberger, he recognized all.

[Lester Holt]

Of us very well. You know, he kind of approached us like we were good friends.

[Keith Morrison]

And then off he went up Kamiak Butte into the dark, alone. Night, it appeared, appealed to Goldberger frequently. He went for drives in the dark, hikes and runs in the dark. What is this business about loving to be in the dark?

[Lester Holt]

Brian is someone who lived in the shadows again.

[Keith Morrison]

Journalist and author Howard Bloom.

[Lester Holt]

It's no crime to be a night owl, but it all adds to this level of mystery, of detachment from society that was his Persona.

[Keith Morrison]

Or perhaps something more than just detachment. Kohberger's lawyers have said he has obsessive compulsive disorder, a condition which can disrupt sleep cycles. Retired FBI profiler Greg Cooper has testified for decades as an expert in the field of behavioral analysis, he has studied Kohberger extensively.

[Lester Holt]

He functions under the cloak of darkness. That's where he's comfortable. Nobody can see him.

[Keith Morrison]

He doesn't have to worry about being identified. But if Brian Kohberger thought he couldn't be identified, then he would have been wrong. In cell phone tower data collected by the FBI and obtained exclusively by Dateline, an agent asserts there is evidence showing the areas Kohberger visited after dark in those summer months before the murders. Most significant trips to a very specific area of Moscow, starting in July, the evening of that pool party, and continuing a dozen times until mid August. And in doing so, connected to a cell tower providing coverage to within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road. Had he connected while parking near the tower or driving past? We don't know how or when Bryan Kohberger came to be aware of the house on King Road or its occupants. We cannot tell you.

[Lester Holt]

There was no prior interaction between Bryan Kohberger and any of the victims. They don't have any record of any conversations with them that they found of him going through social media.

[Keith Morrison]

What Kohberger was thinking as he came near the King Road House or just why he was there, we can't know that either. But profiler Cooper believes all of this is evidence of a plan coming together.

[Lester Holt]

He's on the hunt to begin with.

[Keith Morrison]

He wants to understand the level of.

[Lester Holt]

His own risk that he's going to be taking just to experience and prepare for what he has planned to do.

[Keith Morrison]

Again, what Bryan Kohberger was planning to do, if anything, we do not know. His lawyers have maintained his innocence from the start, but we do know this. On August 16th, six weeks after Kohberger arrived in the area, records from his phone obtained by Dateline and in possession of law enforcement show that Kohberger Googled the name of the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, although with a misspelling of the name and the name of one of Kohberger's professors at Washington State. And then downloaded a paper written by that same professor called Ted Bundy on the Malignant being. An analysis of the justificatory discourse of a serial killer. In other words, how serial killers justify themselves. Was it part of Kohberger's research for school? Or as profiler Cooper speculates, something else.

[Lester Holt]

He can't achieve that level of power, domination and control within his own life.

[Keith Morrison]

And so he looks to those that emulate those characteristics of success that he's.

[Lester Holt]

Determined to follow and has decided, I can do this.

[Keith Morrison]

That search regarding Ted Bundy was far from the only Bundy related item on Coburger's phone. But more about that later that same day, August 16, Matty Mogan posted this photo on Instagram showing her and all of her four roommates on King. Dylan Mortensen, Zanna Kernodle, Bethany Funk, Kaylee and Maddie. How are you? Good.

[Lester Holt]

How are you?

[Keith Morrison]

And then later, at 5:30pm you know.

[Lester Holt]

Why we're here, I assume.

[Keith Morrison]

Noise. Noise, yeah. That is Kaylee Gonsalves talking to officers on police body cam. The house on King Road had been the regular setting for large parties and noise complaints.

[Lester Holt]

Hey, ladies.

[Keith Morrison]

How's it going? Like this party where none of the actual residents was even present.

[Lester Holt]

So I just looked for everyone that lived here, and they're not here right now.

[Keith Morrison]

All right. Can you hear me, Maddie? Although officers eventually did reach Maddy Mogan on the phone.

[Lester Holt]

I'm just frustrated. I'm also so sorry, once again.

[Keith Morrison]

So was it possible that someone who wanted to could have slipped into the house during that or some other party unnoticed? We ran that idea by Ashlyn's mother, Angela. Do you think it's possible that Kohberger attended parties there?

[Lester Holt]

No. They're not going to let somebody of his age in that house, period. And if there was somebody that they didn't know, they kicked him out because my husband and I watched it firsthand.

[Keith Morrison]

Five days after that party, at this intersection, less than two miles from the house on King Road, a deputy stopped and ticketed for failing to wear a seat belt. It was 11:40pm Then five days after that, on Aug. 26, Coburger googled, When can a cop detain you?

[Lester Holt]

What he's doing is testing what the protocol is for the police officer and.

[Keith Morrison]

Comparing that to what his experience was. But information about detainment and due process were not the only Google searches. On that phone, he is Googling phrases related to pornography. His searches include the words forced, passed out, drugged, sleeping. Does that mean anything to you? Interesting, isn't it?

[Lester Holt]

These are all themes of power, domination, and control.

[Keith Morrison]

But now, late in August, school was starting at WSU in Pullman. He was part of a PhD cohort and ready to begin work on becoming Dr. Bryan Kohberger. Bryan Kohberger was more than just a student. That autumn of 2022, here at Washington State University, he'd been given added responsibility as a teaching assistant, or TA, meaning that in addition to his PhD studies, he'd be leading classes and grading papers. It didn't go well.

[Lester Holt]

He was very demanding. He felt he was the smartest person in the room, and he wanted his students to approach somewhere his level of expertise, and they resented this.

[Keith Morrison]

In our reporting, we've heard complaints about Kohberger. Accusations of sexism, for one thing. Mattie Mogan's friend Katie heard about it, too, from students she employed at her clothing store.

[Lester Holt]

So there's a girl that she said that I have never ever gotten a CE before in my life. That in that class it was very known that Bryan Kohberger had a problem with women.

[Keith Morrison]

Another student told us that Kohberger seemed to enjoy belittling a professor who sometimes struggled with English usage. She is the same professor who'd written the paper about Ted Bundy.

[Lester Holt]

He would talk about this, it seemed, almost obsessively.

[Keith Morrison]

Kohberger's only known friend at WSU turned out to be someone with whom he shared an office and the graduate student apartment complex, a woman from Korea, Na Young Ko.

[Lester Holt]

It's very difficult for anyone to understand why any two people are attracted. But from the reporting I've done, they both were outsiders.

[Keith Morrison]

Two young people far from home. Who could blame them? Two sources familiar with the relationship characterized it in a similar way.

[Lester Holt]

She told People she, quote, felt something about Kohberger and at one point she approached him as if she wanted a romantic relationship and he pulled away that she felt she wasn't good enough for him.

[Keith Morrison]

That's about the same time Kohberger was browsing these photos of women on his phone. Dateline has obtained dozens of these photos. Many of them got to Kohberger's phone from Instagram. We've blurred the photos of the women for obvious reasons, but there are blondes and brunettes and many in bathing suits. Some from wsu, others from the University of Idaho, including close friends and Instagram followers of Maddy Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves and Zanika Nodal, three of the roommates on King Road.

[Lester Holt]

The idea is you're studying them.

[Keith Morrison]

Dr. Gary Brucato is a clinical and forensic psychologist, a researcher and author. He's the co creator of the Columbia University Mass Murder database and a visiting scholar at Boston College. Dr. Brucato has not examined Bryan Kohberger, but he has followed the case closely. And we asked him about these photos found in Kohberger's browsing history.

[Lester Holt]

If you're casting a fantasy, the only thing these people have to have in common is that they have the characteristics of who it is that you think rejected you. So they'd have to be popular, attractive and female. It's a type of trolling behavior and getting stimulated by looking at people who in his mind to have these characteristics and fuel the fantasy.

[Keith Morrison]

Whatever that fantasy was for Bryan Kohberger or if he had any at all, we don't know. But history shows that potential serial killers progress, engage in escalating forbidden behaviors, peeping into windows to entering homes uninvited, collecting personal things. And that's why this story about Kohberger's classmate Na Young. It happened two months before the murders. September 10, 2022, in her apartment.

[Lester Holt]

She felt there was a break in. And she discovers this step by step. First she had baked a cake. She left it on the oven because it got burnt. She was going to throw it out. She comes into the house and she finds it's in the microwave. Then she goes into the bathroom. Her cosmetics were all on a shelf and now they've been lined up in a neat row on the top of the toilet seat.

[Keith Morrison]

Then code discovered two items were missing. Prized possessions, a watch and a personal letter.

[Lester Holt]

And here she was alone and really she's scared.

[Keith Morrison]

It was also 2 o' clock in the morning. Who could she call at that hour? Well, the night owl, Bryan Coburger.

[Lester Holt]

Of course she's afraid to stay there. She goes to his apartment. They spend the night together. They're nothing romantic, but she stays there and she feels comfortable. It's only later that she begins to put the pieces together. And she begins to think, well, maybe Brian knew about the letter I had received. He knew about the watch. Could he have taken them?

[Keith Morrison]

And then a source told Bloom, something else occurred to Na Young Ko. The day before this theft, she hadn't been able to find the key to to her apartment, a key usually kept in a drawer at her office, the office she shared with Brian Coburger.

[Lester Holt]

She tells Brian, he says, I don't know. I haven't seen anything. And then suddenly, a couple of hours later, the key materializes in her office drawer.

[Keith Morrison]

Ko was worried. She bought a security system for her apartment, one she could check on her phone. And when the insulation was proved to be a little too complicated for her again, she called Kohberger.

[Lester Holt]

And he installs the thing and he gets it working. And it's only later she begins to wonder, was this on Brian's phone, too? Could he look on his phone and see what was happening in my apartment? She realizes that this person she had called in her moment of need and desperation might now be not only spying on her, but also perhaps the perpetrator who had taken the valuables originally.

[Keith Morrison]

Later, Nyenko told law enforcement about her suspicions. We asked to speak with her. She declined comment. What that incident at her apartment was all about, we may never know, or whether Coburger was behind it all or got some satisfaction from it. But we do know that his life at WSU was not going well. A month into the semester, he'd had an altercation with a professor, and he.

[Lester Holt]

Would just rear up in fights. He would lose his temper.

[Keith Morrison]

The move west didn't seem to be going well, unless, of course, to him, it was six weeks before the murders on King Road. Bryan Kohberger's life seemed stressful. The new acquaintances who were avoiding him, who found him strange, the undergrads in his classes who were complaining about him, the colleagues who found him difficult. At the end of September 2022, the dean asked to see him to discuss norms of professional behavior. Retired FBI profiler Greg Cooper has observed similar patterns of distress, often in cases that end in murder.

[Lester Holt]

These are what we refer to as.

[Keith Morrison]

Precipitating stressors and triggering events. On September 30, as phone records reveal, Kohberger Googled sociopathic traits in college student.

[Lester Holt]

If an individual is starting to notice that they're having a hard time having feelings towards other people, you might try to look it up and understand it to make sense out of it.

[Keith Morrison]

Forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Brucato.

[Lester Holt]

Now, you do have somebody who is studying criminology, so it's entirely possible that he's reading about it because he's learning about offenders. But it's impossible to say.

[Keith Morrison]

Impossible to say what was in Coburger's mind. But those FBI records may hold clues. Clues. They show Coburger's phone popping up three more times in the first two weeks of October, hitting the cell tower within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road in Moscow. Again, all after dark. Telling a story, said Dr. Brucato. And based on his training and long experience, he speculates this way.

[Lester Holt]

One imagines a predatory animal in increasingly small loops around the victim, moving closer and closer, building up one's nerve.

[Keith Morrison]

Have you seen examples of this sort of behavior? Other examples?

[Lester Holt]

It's very typical of men who are motivated by sexual fantasy. It looks pretty motiveless and strange, like a random targeting of a house, but it has to do with that the person that is living inside has caught your eye as filling the role perfectly of your fantasy.

[Keith Morrison]

We don't know how any of the women in that house caught Coburger's eye or if he stopped during any of those drives of his near the house. But if he did, you'd expect that.

[Lester Holt]

He went to the backyard, for example, and possibly looked through the window.

[Keith Morrison]

Murphy, you've been a bad boy. Certainly it would not have been difficult to see the women or even study them or the house based on their almost constant posting on social media.

[Lester Holt]

The other possibility, of course, is that you're using things like TikTok videos, because for people like this, everything is intel. You know, there's a door there, there's a lock, look, there's a dog. The window's open, look at what time of day it is. And there are people there, et cetera. And it's all about fact gathering. You guys, it's eight gotta go.

[Keith Morrison]

And cell records Dateline has obtained show that at the same time in early October, a month before the murders, Kohberger was still browsing images of women from WSU and the University of Idaho on his phone. Google searches were made for pornography containing the keywords drugged and sleeping. Then October 14th.

[Lester Holt]

Hello, I am Officer Loangus.

[Keith Morrison]

Bryan Kohberger was pulled over for the second time in seven weeks, this time for running a red light on the WSU campus, a stop captured on police body cam.

[Lester Holt]

You're not supposed to block an intersection like that in Washington.

[Keith Morrison]

Coburger was courteous, explained he was from out of state.

[Lester Holt]

Yeah, where I'm from, Pennsylvania, we actually don't have, like, crosswalks. I'm just curious about the law. I don't mean to. Oh, no, yeah. I can find it for you. Yeah, Yeah. I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law. I wasn't trying to, like. No, no, no, not at all. Like, I understand you're not from here.

[Keith Morrison]

She was very professional.

[Lester Holt]

She didn't challenge him. She didn't make him feel subordinate to her. Have a good day.

[Keith Morrison]

Five days after that traffic stop, Kohlberger Googled these words. Can psychopaths behave pro socially? He's researching, he's understanding, becoming more familiar with psychopathic characteristics. Was this search related to schoolwork or his own sense of self? We don't know. But then he Googled his own name four times in a span of 13 days. As November began, he took this photo of a snowy parking lot outside his apartment. And then on November 2nd, 11 days before the murders, he had a meeting at WSU to discuss what was called an AB improvement plan.

[Lester Holt]

He got into a confrontation with one of the female students. He approached her while she was at her car, and she did not like the vibes he was sending off.

[Keith Morrison]

That incident was reported to faculty. And then on November 7th, in cell phone tower data collected by the FBI and obtained exclusively by Dateline, an agent found that Kohberger's phone again connected with with that cell tower, showing he was within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road. And that made it a total of 23 trips to that very same area in the four months before the murders. All after dark. Then, according to prosecutors, Coburger stopped using his debit card on Thursday, November 10th. And the next day, the 11th began employing what the state's experts call anti forensic methods to clear evidence from his school computer. The weekend ahead would be one no one would ever forget.

[Lester Holt]

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Nike, Expedia, Bloomingdale's and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save Money at over 3,500 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app. That's R A K U T E N hey all. I'm Jamielynn Sigler, a mom, actor and advocate. I know how overwhelming it can be trying to decide which treatment is right for you. I've been there. But you should know you're not alone. You can do this. Start with some research, talk to the community, and most importantly, don't be afraid to ask your doctor questions. You might find results that speak for themselves. That's how I landed on Qysimta. Ask your doctor if Qisimta ofatumumab could be right for you. You can check out the [e-mail] hey guys. Finding the perfect gift for the food lover in your life is easy thanks to Goldbelly. Goldbelly ships America's most iconic foods straight from world famous restaurants right to your door. So if you want to treat someone to Joe's Stone Crab from Miami, Franklin Barbecue from Texas, or desserts from famous foodies like Ina Garten or Martha Stewart, Goldbelly has you covered with free shipping anywhere in the country. Just go to goldbelly.com and for a limited time, get 20% off your first order with promo Code gift. That's promo code gift.

[Keith Morrison]

Saturday, November 12, 2022, on the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow. It was game day. The Vandals would be playing football. A photograph was in order. At the house just off campus at 1122 King Road were Maddie Mogan and her lifelong friend Kaylee Gonsalves. Kaylee was close to graduation and had already moved most of her belongings out of the house, but had returned that weekend to show off her new Range Rover. The others, Santa Kernodle and her boyfriend, 20 year old Ethan Chapin. Chapin didn't live in the house, but often stayed over. And two new roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk. And there might have been at least one more face in that photo if Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn Couch had her way. Ashlyn had graduated, graduated a few months earlier, moved out of the house and to save money moved back to her parents place in Coeur d' Alene. But that weekend her parents were out of town and they had asked a favor of Ashlyn.

[Lester Holt]

So we were supposed to come in Friday night and our flight actually got in on Saturday night because I rerouted our trip.

[Keith Morrison]

And so you asked her to stay.

[Lester Holt]

And she had to stay an extra day to watch the the dogs.

[Keith Morrison]

How'd she feel about that?

[Lester Holt]

I mean, she was bummed because it was a big game day.

[Keith Morrison]

Has ever A favor asked by parents turned out to be such a godsend. Kickoff for Senior day was 4:02pm Touchdown, Idaho. The game ended at 7:12. And less than an hour later, across the state line in Pullman, Washington, Brian Christ was on his phone at 8:08pm Records obtained by Dateline show he was watching YouTube. Then, around 9pm Kaylee Gonsalves posted that group photo on Instagram. And in what would be the last social media post of her young life, Kaylee wrote, one lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day. That Saturday night, Ethan and Zanna were attending a party at the nearby Sigma Chi fraternity. Kaylee and Maddy went to hang out at the Corner Club in downtown Moscow, arriving sometime after 10pm Three and a half hours later, at 1:37am the two women left the bar together, walked a couple of blocks to a place called the Grub Truck and got some food. As you can see in this video, at precisely 1 4, at 1:49am One of the women called for a young fraternity member who'd been assigned to help drive home upperclassmen and women to make sure they arrived safely. A ride of little more than a mile. They got to the house on king Road at 1:56am Roommates Bethany and Dylan also got home around 2. Zanna and her boyfriend Ethan would return shortly. And starting at 2:26am Kaylee and Maddie made a total of 10 phone calls to Kaylee's former boyfriend. A half hour later, at 2:54am A cell phone in neighboring Pullman was turned off. It was the cell phone belonging to Brian Kohberger. 32 minutes later, at 3:26, a car that authorities identified as a white Elantra A and called Suspect Vehicle 1 was detected in the southeast corner of Moscow. At 3:30am security video from a neighboring house obtained exclusively by Dateline shows suspect vehicle one turning toward 1122 King Road just off camera. Three minutes later, at 3:33am the car was back again, passing the house. Then again five minutes later at 3:38 and at 3:40am and then back on King Road at 3:56am and 3:58am.

[Lester Holt]

All this leads me to feel it was an internal battle. He had made up his mind at some point earlier to commit these crimes.

[Keith Morrison]

By 4am Most people inside the house were in their rooms. Some were asleep, but not Zanna, who about that time received a food order from DoorDash. Then at 4:06am Something definitive seemed to be happening. The car traveled west, performed a U turn at the intersection of King Road and Queen Road and headed back toward the house. At 4:07am the car drove in one last time, approaching the house at 1122 King Road.

[Lester Holt]

So now it's time to go ahead and do this.

[Keith Morrison]

It was just before 4:07am and pitch dark. The white car caught in these images, obtained exclusively by Dateline, a car that had been captured on video for some 38 minutes on the streets around 1122 King Road in Moscow had gone off camera and apparently parked nearby. Inside the car, police believe the driver and a knife with a 7 inch blade. The marine Corps fighting Ka Bar. What was going through the mind of the person carrying that knife? Dr. Brucato can only speculate based on his years of study.

[Lester Holt]

My sense is that was a culmination of a life where over and over again you're being rejected and you're being knocked off a pedestal. You say, that's it. It's time to enact the fantasy to.

[Keith Morrison]

Illustrate what might have happened inside the house on King Road in the minutes that followed, we had this animation built. It's based on the recollections of former residents and court records, police affidavits, real estate and social media images of the house. And we've also spoken to sources close to the investigation who gave us their theories of what happened. Sometime after 4:07am the killer entered the house on the second floor through an unlocked sliding kitchen door and went quickly and directly upstairs to Maddy Mogan's bedroom. Sources close to the investigation have told us that is one of the reasons they believe Maddie was the killer's target. But almost certainly to the killer's surprise, he discovered that Maddie was not alone. Kaylee was sleeping in the same bed.

[Lester Holt]

Something happened that hadn't been planned on.

[Keith Morrison]

The killer attacked anyway. There was a struggle. It was noisy. Multiple sources close to the investigation speculate that Zanna, downstairs in the second floor kitchen on TikTok, heard thumping and went to investigate. The killer must have been heard this, our sources said, and turned his attention away from Maddie and Kaylee and began chasing Zanna.

[Lester Holt]

And in that kind of chaos, this thing gets dropped.

[Keith Morrison]

The thing being the sheath for the Ka Bar knife, the one found on Maddie's bed. Those same sources have told us that with the killer in pursuit, Zanna desperately tried to reach her bedroom where Ethan was sleeping or was possibly passed out. But as she reached the bedroom, the killer was on her. But one source described as a hell of a fight ensued. At 4:17am, 10 minutes after the suspect car turned in toward 1122 King Road. The security camera on that neighboring house picked up sounds, including what police described in charging papers as distorted audio of what sounded like voices. Ra a whimper followed by a loud thud. Here are those sounds. A dog began to bark as if something was wrong. Then multiple sources close to the investigation told us was Anna either dead or dying? The killer saw Ethan in the possibly passed out after a night of drinking. And with one swift blow of the knife, Blood spatter shows the killer struck an artery.

[Lester Holt]

When you're dealing with crimes that are motivated by anger toward women, the men that are in the way are rapidly dispatched.

[Keith Morrison]

Then, according to our sources, the killer did something strange. He carved Ethan's lower legs. Carved is the specific word that was used.

[Lester Holt]

If you view that person as having gotten in the way of what it is you were trying to play out, you might be overwhelmed with anger toward them and do something extra. And I think it's a clue that there was a sexualized component to this, because this was about women. There was a special anger toward that male.

[Keith Morrison]

It looked like the killer sat down after that, said an investigative source, and left behind impressions in blood on a bedroom chair. He's exhausted. He's gone through four people.

[Lester Holt]

People that commit mass murder don't anticipate the adrenal exhaustion that's going to overwhelm them when they do it.

[Keith Morrison]

But as he left the bedroom, intending to exit through the same kitchen door where he entered, the killer was surprised again by another roommate. Dylan Mortensen had heard various unexplained noises that night, and at that moment opened her bedroom door after hearing a noise she said she thought was crying coming from Zanna's room, according to a police affidavit. She's bothered by the noise.

[Lester Holt]

She opens the door and sees this.

[Keith Morrison]

Individual coming down the hallway. Later, in charging papers, police said Dylan told them she heard a male voice say something like, it's okay. I'm going to help you, and saw a male in black cloth clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. She said he was 5ft 10 or taller, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. She said the male walked past her as she stood in a frozen shock phase.

[Lester Holt]

If she had said one word, if she had screamed for help, if she didn't find the moments too overwhelming, I think she would have been killed, too.

[Keith Morrison]

But she was not, Dylan said. The man walked away while she locked herself in the bedroom. She knows something's wrong. She's under the influence of alcohol. She's between being awake and asleep. He would have probably assumed that she was about to call 911. He better get the hell out of there. Definitely his primary objective now is to get out of there and not to get caught. And here at 4:20am is suspect vehicle one. As it burst back into the range of that security camera at a high rate of speed, the car raced toward the intersection, turned right and disappeared from view. This car left in such a hurry, he almost hit somebody.

[Lester Holt]

Yep, that's right. He's panicking.

[Keith Morrison]

If he was, he wasn't the only one.

[Lester Holt]

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Nike, Expedia, Bloomingdale's and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save Money at over 3,500 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app that's R a k u t e n hey all, I'm Jamielynn Sigler, a mom, actor and advocate. I know how overwhelming it can be trying to decide which treatment is right for you. I've been there. But you should know you're not alone. You can do this. Start with some research, talk to the community, and most importantly, don't be afraid to ask your doctor questions. You might find results that speak for themselves. That's how I landed on Qysimta. Ask your doctor if Qysimta ofatumumab could be right for you. You can check out the [e-mail] hey guys, have you heard of goldbelly? It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic famous foods from restaurants across the country, anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. Goldbelly ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels, Maine lobster rolls and even ina Garden's famous cakes. So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. That's goldbelly.com promo code GIFT.

[Keith Morrison]

As suspect vehicle one careened out of the King Road neighborhood at 4:20am Dylan Mortenson was still locked in her bedroom making calls to roommates. Calls that would never be answered. But for whatever reason, she did not call. 911 downstairs on the first floor of the house. Bethany Funk was also making calls to Zanna and Kaylee. 4:22 Dylan texted Bethany. No one is answering. I'm really confused right now. Dylan texted she saw someone wearing a ski mask almost also something over his head and mouth. I'm not kidding. I am so freaked out. Then Bethany to Dylan, come to my room. Run down here. Dylan left her room and began running toward Bethany's room downstairs. On her way, she noticed Zanna lying on the floor of her bedroom with her head toward the wall and her feet toward the door. Dylan thought Santa was drunk, she would say. Later, after Dylan reached Bethany's room, the two roommates continued trying to text and call the victims upstairs. No answer. At 4:48am, 28 minutes after the white car left King Road, FBI records show a cell phone turned on south of Moscow and hit a cell tower that covered an area west of Mountain Blaine, Idaho. A phone that records show was tied to Brian coworker. The signal moved west and 32 minutes later at 5:20am the phone hit a tower near Johnson, Washington. Until finally at 5:39am the phone connected to a tower covering the west side of Pullman, Washington. And it was in Pullman. Records obtained by Dateline show that a call was made for from that phone linked to Brian Coburger using a tower not far from his apartment. The time was 6:17am nearly two hours after the killer sped away from the murder scene. The call lasted 36 minutes. 2 A phone in Pennsylvania registered to Brian Coburger's father. It appears that several family phones, including his mother's, are on the same account. In fact, records show that call was the first of three calls Coburger made to the phone registered to his father that morning. The longest call lasted 54 minutes. We reached out to the family for comment, but we didn't hear back. Meanwhile, back on king Road, by 7:33 hours after the murders, Bethany was awake and calling her dad. By 8:05am Dylan was at least briefly back on Instagram and at times throughout the morning, she continued to reach out to her roommates by text and on social media apps. Still no answer. Just after 9am Records show Brian Coburger's phone was briefly back in Moscow and not far from the crime scene for about nine minutes before returning to his apartment where at 10:31am he took this selfie in his bathroom mirror. The prosecutors released it seven weeks ago. Reaction was immediate and worldwide. Much like this. There's a shower behind him. He's now into new clothes and now he's celebrating.

[Lester Holt]

He talked about looking into the mirror and seeing himself as a nothing. And then after these crimes, he's giving a thumbs up, which implies now he's somebody. And notice it's a mirror, it's a reflection. I'm somebody in the eyes of other people.

[Keith Morrison]

And an hour after that selfie was snapped. Records show that Brian Coburger's cell phone hit a tower serving the towns of Clarkston and Lewiston, 34 miles south of Pullman. Police theorized he could have been disposing of evidence, a knife perhaps, or possibly clothes worn during the killings. And then there's a river down there near Lewiston. So that's right. A very likely place that he could have discarded it.

[Lester Holt]

Be very difficult to retrieve that.

[Keith Morrison]

Back in Moscow, midday was approaching more than seven hours after the murders. Neither Bethany nor Dylan had called 911.

[Lester Holt]

The only explanation that I can find for that is it's cognitive dissonance. It's just too overwhelming. They can't process it in any rational way, so they behave in a way that's irrational.

[Keith Morrison]

Dylan's story, as court records show, at about 11:50am Frightened, she called a friend and asked her to come over. The friend brought her boyfriend and he and Dylan and Bethany started to walk up the stairs. When they reached the second floor, she said she he saw Zanna again for a split second, started bawling and thought Zanna, quote was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor. But the boyfriend had apparently seen more. He told Bethany and Dylan to get out. He was pale white, told him to call 91 1, she said, and mentioned something about someone being unconscious. Bethany dialed 911 at 11:56am 911, location of your emergency. Hi.

[Lester Holt]

Something is happening. Something happened to not help. We don't know what. What is the address of the emergency? 1172. The 911 call is absolutely harrowing. It's clear that they were totally shocked. You can see how they're overwhelmed by this event.

[Keith Morrison]

An unidentified female speaker stepped in to help.

[Lester Holt]

The address, 1122 King Road.

[Keith Morrison]

1 of the roommates has passed out and she was drunk last night and.

[Lester Holt]

She'S not waking up. Okay. Oh, and they saw some man in their house last night.

[Keith Morrison]

Moscow police were there within minutes and found in the silent bedrooms carnage on the second floor. Zanna lying in what once close to the investigation called a massive pool of blood. Ethan dead in their bed. Upstairs on the third floor were Maddie and Kaylee still together in a bloody bed. All four had been stabbed to death. Then the awful news raced around the college and around the town. And to Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn. Ashlyn, who would have been there that night with Maddie and the others, but had to stay home instead to watch the family dogs. Ashlyn's mom, Angela. What was that like?

[Lester Holt]

It was a pain inside that you can't really explain how your body's feeling. And then knowing that the pain and fear and everything that I saw in my daughter was. It was just like my house stopped. Just stopped for months.

[Keith Morrison]

How soon was it that you thought, my God, she was going to be there?

[Lester Holt]

I didn't think about that right away. All I could think about was the kids. But she just cried in her bed. She didn't want to talk about it. We just cried together for a long time.

[Keith Morrison]

Makes you sad, too, doesn't it?

[Lester Holt]

It does. Sorry.

[Keith Morrison]

Blindsided to that day was Maddie's former boss and friend, Katie Widmire.

[Lester Holt]

My heart dropped, and I really didn't believe it at first. It just really didn't seem real. But then following up with that, just the lack of information quite clearly created so much terror in our community that, yeah, people, you know, I didn't know how to act. I was never a gun owner. In that instance, at which someone could.

[Keith Morrison]

Come into your home.

[Lester Holt]

It really changed my mind about that.

[Keith Morrison]

Things changed that day. No doubt about it. Moscow, Idaho. November 14, 2022. The day after. By now, the public had heard the names of the victims of the killings on King Road. Maddie, Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan. There were no words big enough to describe the shock or the anger.

[Lester Holt]

Young women don't deserve to die at all. But pursuing an education in a place where they, like they, were safe.

[Keith Morrison]

The job facing the small force at the Moscow Police Department was monstrous. Right away, they called in the FBI and Idaho State Police. But they'd quickly found an important clue. The killer had left behind a knife sheath, like this one on the bed where Maddie and Kaylee were killed. A sheath, as investigators soon learned from these records they received from Amazon. That was identical to the one Bryan Coburger bought months before he'd even moved to Washington. And two days after the murders, on November 15, those records show, Kohberger was back on Amazon at 4:34am Looking at K bars. He even clicked Buy now and began the checkout process before exiting. The next morning, Kohberger Googled the words University of Idaho murders, apparently for the first time.

[Lester Holt]

We know you have questions, and so do we.

[Keith Morrison]

That same day, Wednesday, three days after the murders, police finally held a News conference.

[Lester Holt]

We will do everything we can to solve this. Thank you.

[Keith Morrison]

On November 18, five days after the murders, Kohberger's browsing history showed a program with the title card the Perfect Killing Machine. Ted Bundy serial killer after he watched a YouTube video about the King Road victims.

[Lester Holt]

There are plenty of questions and very few answers.

[Keith Morrison]

Then Also on the 18th, state licensing records show that Kohberger went to the DMV and replaced the Pennsylvania plates on his white Hyundai Elantra with plates from Washington state and took these pictures of his car and the new plates.

[Lester Holt]

Welcome back. The eyes of the nation are on the Idaho quadruple murders.

[Keith Morrison]

And over the next six weeks, records show photos and videos and news updates about the King Road murders were viewed or saved on Kohberger's phone at least 60 times. He was collecting everything, all the reporting about the incident.

[Lester Holt]

It's very common.

[Keith Morrison]

By November 22, nine days after the murders, the Idaho State Police laboratory had isolated DNA found on that knife sheath left in Matty Mogen's bed and sent it to an outside lab to try try to find the identity of the donor. That same day, as Amazon records received by investigators show, Kohberger searched for a utility knife sheath and a K Bar leather sheath, but again made no purchase. It was around the same time, as revealed by court papers, that Kohberger looked into deleting his Amazon account activity. A week later, as November came to a close, these selfies turned up on Coburger's phone. He also watched a program about Ted Bundy with photos of Maddie and Kaylee and then did a Google search of his own name in early December. Guys have all heard about this quadruple murder. Kohberger was still watching videos like these original Night Stalker and these about infamous serial killers. And after midnight on December 6, record show was searching Amazon again, this time for a KA Bar knife and a sheath. So whether he was planning to be able to show if anybody came around to see him, that he actually had a sheath for it and he couldn't have been in who dropped it.

[Lester Holt]

Or maybe you don't think you're going to get captured and you're thinking about doing it again.

[Keith Morrison]

That same week, authorities told the public to be on the lookout for a car similar to the one called a white Hyundai Elantra. By December 10, the DNA on that knife sheath had been checked against profiles in the two smallest genealogy databases, which have only about 2 million samples. No match. So the FBI uploaded the DNA profile to another platform with millions more possible matches. This database was Used, even though its terms of service prohibit law enforcement from using customer data. Genetic genealogist Cece Moore.

[Lester Holt]

Several years ago, the Department of Justice put together guidelines that they would like us all to follow, including federal employees like the FBI. But it's not a law. These are guidelines. They are suggestions. And so if a federal employee is the one doing the genetic genealogy, or if an agency is getting federal funds, they are supposed to follow that, but it's not a final law.

[Keith Morrison]

So in this investigation, the FBI skirted its own policy.

[Lester Holt]

And so the FBI decided that this was a big enough threat to public safety and that there was an urgency. And so they got clearance to upload to the MyHeritage database.

[Keith Morrison]

Surreptitiously, MyHeritage has 9 million donors. As the FBI worked to narrow down the pool of suspects by using that genetic genealogy, Bryan Coburger's father flew from Pennsylvania to Washington to accompany his son on the drive home for the holiday break.

[Lester Holt]

And during the course of this ride, it has been explained to me, the father starts getting suspicions. They're looking for a white car. My son drives a white car. He lives 10 miles away from the murder scene. He has emotional problems. Could he be involved in this?

[Keith Morrison]

On December 15th, in the early morning hours, Kohberger watched a video on his phone containing this quote. It read, something is wrong with me. I can't be who I need to be. Something is wrong with me. Will it last for eternity? It doesn't fit into society. Then later that morning.

[Lester Holt]

How you doing? How y' all doing today?

[Keith Morrison]

The Coburger's father and son were pulled over in Indiana.

[Lester Holt]

He was right up on the back.

[Keith Morrison]

End of that van, not once, but twice for following too closely.

[Lester Holt]

Just make sure you give yourself plenty of room, okay?

[Keith Morrison]

Three days after the Co Burgers arrived back home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, the FBI had traced the DNA on the knife sheath to a geographic area, the northeast, then to a family, the Co Burgers. And finally settled on a likely suspect in the murders on King Road, Bryan Kohberger. Later that week, two more selfies of Kohberger in a black hoodie showed up on his face. And as Christmas came and went, a source close to the investigation has confirmed his family noticed he was acting oddly.

[Lester Holt]

He's sorting his garbage. He's wearing gloves. And one of the other family members, a sister, comes up to the father and says, in effect, dad Brian could possibly be involved in these murders.

[Keith Morrison]

Coburger's father and entire family were in for a terrible awakening.

[Lester Holt]

Shop with rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Nike, Expedia, Bloomingdale's and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cashback. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save Money at over 3,500 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app that's R a k u t e N hey all, I'm Jamie Lynn Sigler, a mom, actor and advocate. I know how overwhelming it can be trying to decide which treatment is right for you. I've been there. But you should know you're not alone. You can do this. Start with some research, talk to the community, and most importantly, don't be be afraid to ask your doctor questions. You might find results that speak for themselves. That's how I landed on Qysimta. Ask your doctor if Qysimta ofatumumab could be right for you. You can check out the [e-mail] hey guys. Finding the perfect gift for the food lover in your life is easy thanks to Goldbelly. Goldbelly ships America's most iconic foods straight from world famous restaurants right to your door. So if you want to treat someone to Joe's Stone Crab from Miami, Franklin Barbecue from Texas, or desserts from famous foodies like Ina G or Martha Stewart, Goldbelly has you covered with free shipping anywhere in the country. Just go to goldbelly.com and for a limited time, get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. That's promo code GIFT.

[Keith Morrison]

December 27, 2022, Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. Investigators needed a sample of Brian Kohberger's DNA to see if it matched the sample found on the knife sheath presumably left by the killer in Matty Mogan's bed. So under cover of darkness, they grabbed some trash outside the Kohberger home, flew the sample to Idaho, and tests showed there was a high probability it came from the biological father of the person who left the DNA on the sheath at the crime scene that same day, on Kohberger's phone, a clip was played from a YouTube program called TED Bundy, the Essence of a Psychopath. Later, Kohberger, dressed in a black hoodie the same way Bundy is pictured on that program, took two selfies. Then two days later, on Thursday, December 29, just before midnight, Bryan Kohberger pulled up a song on his phone by Brian Britney Spears, the title criminal.

[Lester Holt]

He is a killer. Just for fun, fun, fun, fun.

[Keith Morrison]

He listened to an edited version that had been slowed down and posted on YouTube. It seems highly unlikely Bryan Kohberger knew as he listened to that song that a special tactical team was nearby watching him. And at 33 minutes after midnight, the snipers on that team reported seeing a man in a black hoodie turning on a light and entering the kitchen. And then observing the man going to the garage, returning and wearing rubber gloves, handling a plastic baggie. And then about 1:14am Brian Kohberger's world came crashing down.

[Lester Holt]

The police come bashing down the door. They break windows, they tie zip ties around his parents. And then he's let out and he gets in the backseat of the patrol car and he says, well, you know, maybe we should get a cup of coffee when this is over. As if he thinks this is going to have a happy ending and life is going to go back to normal.

[Keith Morrison]

Bryant Kohlberger was under arrest. The news was breaking.

[Lester Holt]

Just moments from now, police in Moscow, Idaho, will hold a news conference.

[Keith Morrison]

Coverage worldwide.

[Lester Holt]

It's the breakthrough their families have been desperate for.

[Keith Morrison]

You saw pictures of him when it came out. What was your first reaction to it?

[Lester Holt]

I think I just thought he was a nobody. Like, I think that he was someone who the girls probably would never have noticed.

[Keith Morrison]

May be the problem exactly. Hours after Coburger's arrest, Pullman police served a search warrant on his apartment. Police department search warrant. And 51 days after four murders sparked a manhunt and left a small university town frozen in fear.

[Lester Holt]

Brian? Brian, did you do it?

[Keith Morrison]

Brian, did you do it?

[Lester Holt]

Brian?

[Keith Morrison]

Bryan Coburger was led into a Pennsylvania courtroom for an extradition hearing. He was flown back to Pullman, Washington the next day and then took a drive familiar to him by now to.

[Lester Holt]

Moscow, State of Idaho versus Brian C. Coburger.

[Keith Morrison]

Then Coburger appeared before an Idaho judge a mere mile and a half from an active crime scene he stood accused of creating. He was charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of burglary.

[Lester Holt]

Do you understand? Yes.

[Keith Morrison]

Months later, a judge entered a not guilty plea on Kohberger's behalf. But when the state announced it would seek the death penalty for Kohberger, the process slowed to a crawl. And as the community waited in limbo, the house hunt King Road became a shrine of sorts, a must see for visitors to Moscow until the university tore it down last year. Well, this is a huge story around the world. Yeah, but what about locally? What about at home.

[Lester Holt]

I think at home, we really ignore it a little bit. And there's just a little bit of a hands off, like they don't know what's gonna happen. What's the fallout, whether or not justice is gonna be served.

[Keith Morrison]

And it was in the name of defense team said that a motion was filed to move the trial from Moscow to Boise in search of an impartial jury. A motion the judge granted. And so Idaho State Police flew Bryan Kohberger south to await trial in the Ada County Jail. Kohberger's trial will be the latest high profile case moved to Boise from more rural parts of the state. The others being the trials of of Lori Valo Daybell and Chad Daybell. Both were convicted in connection with the murders of Daybell's first wife, Tammy, and Vallow's two children. Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood got those verdicts and knows what it will be like when Coburger's trial begins this summer. What's the pressure on you as a prosecutor in a. And it's such a huge case that so many people are watching.

[Lester Holt]

You certainly feel it when dateline's doing shows about your case. You feel it when, when Netflix has a special out. And it certainly adds a different dynamic than what we're used to.

[Keith Morrison]

Do you have any, any advice for the prosecutors in the Coburger case, knowing what you went through?

[Lester Holt]

I guess the one bit of advice I'd have is, you know, when you see all the cameras rolling and the people lining up, you just kind of put it out of your head and just go do what you got to do.

[Keith Morrison]

And when the trial starts, what Brian Coburger's defense will want to do is create as much doubt as possible.

[Lester Holt]

And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects, that should cause you some questions and concerns.

[Keith Morrison]

The ADA County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho. This is where they'll try him, starting with jury selection on July 30. Barring delay, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. And for potential jurors, that means an extra set of questions.

[Lester Holt]

In capital cases, jurors are questioned on their beliefs on the death penalty.

[Keith Morrison]

Drew Simshaw is a law professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

[Lester Holt]

The court wants to know, would this juror be open to all of the potential punishments that are on the table, be it life in prison or be it death. So if it's determined that a juror would not be able to faithfully and impartially apply the law at the sentencing phase, they would be excused from the jury.

[Keith Morrison]

And so those left will serve on what's known as a death qualified jury.

[Lester Holt]

There's concerns that these juries, in weeding out certain potential jurors, would have fewer women, fewer African Americans, fewer people of certain religious faiths that tend to be opposed to the death penalty. Your jury is going to look less representative of the general population. It's going to be more white males, and it's going to be more people who are prone to convict.

[Keith Morrison]

So what kind of people will each side want on that jury for a trial that may last at least three months?

[Lester Holt]

Well, I would be looking to put.

[Keith Morrison]

On the jury as a prosecutor, people who can follow a lot of detail. Former Idaho lieutenant governor and attorney general Dave leroy has been practicing law in the state for more than 50 years. I want people who have a penchant for organizing large bodies of information into understandable patterns and themes. And for Bryan Coburger's attorneys, I'm looking for jurors who might be disinclined to believe law enforcement.

[Lester Holt]

I want people of great human empathy, great human conditions who are inclined to.

[Keith Morrison]

Be skeptics about, perhaps most of all about that K bar knife sheath, the one that Amazon records show Kohberger bought eight months before the murder and which the state will allege he left behind in Matty Mogan's bed. That sheath could become the very, very centerpiece of the trial. The smoking gun. Unless it isn't.

[Lester Holt]

Your honor, we're here because the state has alleged that a single piece of evidence ties Mr. Kohberger to this case.

[Keith Morrison]

In pre trial motions, lead defense attorney Ann Taylor asked the judge to exclude evidence that Kohberger's DNA was found on the sheath. She claimed it was inadmissible because the FBI, as you'll recall, went outside its own guidelines on investigative genetic genealogy to zero in on Bryan Kohberger.

[Lester Holt]

Your honor, our position is that the court should suppress the IgG identification and everything that flows from that coeur d' alene.

[Keith Morrison]

Defense attorney Jill Bolton is not involved in the case, but explained the argument.

[Lester Holt]

So in this case, they have a policy. We don't go into private DNA databases without a warrant. Right, but they did.

[Keith Morrison]

Why did they do that?

[Lester Holt]

Well, if they didn't have a warrant to go into that database, it's likely because they didn't have probable cause.

[Keith Morrison]

But Judge Stephen Hippler disagreed. He ruled that the genetic genealogy evidence will be treated at the trial as just another tip that pointed out investigators in the direction of Bryan Kohberger. So the defense will move on to another argument.

[Lester Holt]

What the defense is going to do is saying, yeah, we'll concede that there's a match on the DNA. But the real question is, how did the knife sheath get there? How did the DNA get there?

[Keith Morrison]

Implying, of course, that Coburger's DNA on the sheath was either planted or transferred somehow. The judge has ruled that he will allow a state expert to testify that the DNA on the knife sheath was the result of direct transfer, meaning Coburger himself likely touched the sheath. But the defense is expected to counter with arguments like this.

[Lester Holt]

DNA is great at telling us who the original source of some material was. It doesn't tell us anything, anything about how it got there.

[Keith Morrison]

Dr. Greg Hampikian, the former director of Idaho's Innocence project, has testified as a DNA expert for decades, there's been a.

[Lester Holt]

Number of studies done that show that DNA can be transferred from object to object to object. You can't tell how many times it's transferred. You can't tell when it transferred, but you can tell who it is originally came from. And that's what DNA is great at.

[Keith Morrison]

And then the defense will almost certainly argue again and again that no evidence except that knife sheath links Kohberger to a very bloody crime scene. To which the state will argue how could he have gotten out of there? And they found no blood in the car. Surprising to a lot of people. Well, it is. I've got a case in another state. The bedroom is the crime scene of a double homicide. It looks like a butcher shop.

[Lester Holt]

And there's no way that the individual.

[Keith Morrison]

Would have been able to remove themselves without being immersed in a lot of blood. But there's not a speck of blood on the outside of that room.

[Lester Holt]

So does it happen?

[Keith Morrison]

Is it possible? Absolutely. And as for what's possible, just last month the defense revealed in court that it is looking at into new information which may point specifically to another killer.

[Lester Holt]

We came across a tip that would appear to be an alternate suspect.

[Keith Morrison]

We don't know anything about this possible new suspect. But the state may have given the defense a little ammunition by never testing unidentified blood samples found on a banister inside the house and on a glove found outside.

[Lester Holt]

And by the state not identifying it. They said they couldn't put him through codis. They didn't seem to make any effort to track down who these bloods could have belonged to so that they could have dismissed them. But it now allows Kohberger's defense to raise the specter of, ha, ha, there were other people there that night.

[Keith Morrison]

Spokane, Washington, defense attorney Derek Reed agrees. He's not involved in the case, but he's been keeping track of development.

[Lester Holt]

So as a defense attorney, what I'm doing is I'm saying they don't want you to have that answer because it topples their house of cards. And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects that should cause you some questions and concerns. When they want to take somebody's life, all of your questions should be answered.

[Keith Morrison]

Especially perhaps about the young woman, the apparent witness who later looked at a picture of Bryan Kohberger and said, I.

[Lester Holt]

Have no idea who this is.

[Keith Morrison]

Oh, boy. On such questions, a trial can turn.

[Lester Holt]

There's always more to the story.

[Keith Morrison]

To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our talking DATELINE series with Keith and Blaine, available Wednesday. There was a time in American courtrooms when an airtight case for the state meant simply this. To HEAR Former Idaho Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Dave Leroy Tell it, when I began prosecuting cases 50 years ago.

[Lester Holt]

And dead, solid, locked, perfect case was.

[Keith Morrison]

One fingerprint and one eyewitness. How things have changed. And in the Coburger case, there is one eyewitness. All right. Dylan Mortenson, the King Road roommate who opened her bedroom door that night and later told police she had seen a man in black clothing with bushy eyebrows walking past her as she stood frozen in shock, a man who then left the house while Dylan locked herself in her bedroom. Prosecutors will use that thumbs up selfie Coburger took hours later to show the jury what his eyebrows looked like at the time of the murder. But there is also this, the sort of thing defense attorneys dream of.

[Lester Holt]

Dylan was interviewed by the police four times. The first one she brings up caveats. She says, I was drunk that night. She said I was sort of in a dreamlike state. And then she's shown a mugshot sort of photo and she says, I have no idea who this is.

[Keith Morrison]

Oh, boy.

[Lester Holt]

It's giving the defense evidence that they can take to the jury and raise questions.

[Keith Morrison]

Remember, too, that Dylan said the man was wearing a ski mask. The state has more evidence, of course, including the security video of suspect vehicle one and the fact that Coburger's phone was turned off during the time the murders occurred, about which the defense has.

[Lester Holt]

Claimed that's his alibi. He was out driving around at 4 o' clock in the morning looking at stars on a cloudy, freezing night.

[Keith Morrison]

We cannot know. Of course we can't, what a jury will think of the case against Bryan Coburger or whether the state can prove that the orgy of violence perpetrated on Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Goncalves, Zana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin was his doing. But this, this we do know.

[Lester Holt]

I mean, the stakes here are enormous. The whole world is still watching, listening, and following this.

[Keith Morrison]

And if Kohberger is convicted, prosecutors will offer reasons. Aggravating factors, they're called. That those crimes deserve the death penalty, that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel and exhibited utter disregard for human. Human life. The defense will try to save Coburger's life with factors that mitigate or weaken the arguments for death, which, if it comes to that, might be more difficult here than in other states. Idaho supports capital punishment overwhelmingly. Defense attorney Derek Reed.

[Lester Holt]

I suspect that the wishes of the victim's family were paramount, which any prosecutor has to take into consideration.

[Keith Morrison]

It's true. Kaylee Gonsalves family has been vocal in its call for Coburger to face the death penalty.

[Lester Holt]

If attacking somebody while they're sleeping in their bed isn't probable cause for you to be unprovoked, removed from the planet, what does?

[Keith Morrison]

The defense asked the judge if it could argue that Kohberger's autism spectrum disorder is a reason that he should not be subject to the death penalty. Idaho defense attorney Jill Bolton.

[Lester Holt]

Just as you can't decide that someone should be put to death based on their race, so too should you not make the decision to put someone to death based on their disability. And autism is a disability, and you have a jury that's going to be watching his reactions, and if he has a flat affect with no emotions as a result of autism, disability, then the jury should know about that and they should take that into consideration before making such a decision.

[Keith Morrison]

But the judge ruled that Kohberger's autism can only be brought up in court if Kohberger takes the stand and testifies. If Kohberger is found guilty and if he is sentenced to death, both big ifs, well, then he would become the 10th person on the state's death row. But the first sentenced after the governor this spring signed a law that makes the firing squad its primary mode of execution. Though the likelihood he'd face a firing squad anytime remotely soon is nearly nil. Gonzaga University law professor Drew Simshaw.

[Lester Holt]

The appeals could take decades. So inmates can spend decades on death.

[Keith Morrison]

Row, and they're dying of old age anyway.

[Lester Holt]

Some might. Some might.

[Keith Morrison]

Of course, there's always talk that a trial might still be avoided if Kohberger would agree to plead guilty in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty. But that's Mere speculation, given what Kohberger's attorneys have said.

[Lester Holt]

From what I understand, this is a not guilty. I didn't do it. From the outside looking in. A win is avoiding the death penalty, potentially a hung jury, and hoping that you may be able to work something out to avoid the death penalty in the long term. Understandably, Defense and Mr. Kohlberger are probably of the position that there's only one victory, and that's not guilty. That's a tough road to hoe.

[Keith Morrison]

A tough row. That's an understatement for what life has been like for all the families of the victims the last two and a half years. The ripples, as always, extend in this case to so many, including Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn. Is it true that Ashlyn is sort of unwilling to come home because of where you are in proximity to the area where this happened?

[Lester Holt]

So she moved away? Yeah, she just needed to get away and regroup. She wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew who she was, didn't ask questions. She could make new friends, start a new life.

[Keith Morrison]

But do you hope she gets to the point someday where she's more comfortable to come back home? What do you think it'll take?

[Lester Holt]

I'm not sure. I think that once the trial is over, I think that that's really when you're going to be able to start grieving the right way.

[Keith Morrison]

Took quite a hit, didn't she?

[Lester Holt]

Mm. Yeah. She's not the same.

[Keith Morrison]

One terrible, terrible night in a small college town. Part of the history of the place now always will be, no matter what happens to the case against the criminology student who came to town, authorities say, with a knife in his bag.

[Lester Holt]

There's nothing that will ever take that pain away. But maybe after the trial, they'll have more better days than bad days.

[Keith Morrison]

That's all for this edition of DATELINE. We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.

[Lester Holt]

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Nike, Expedia, Bloomingdale's and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save Money at over 3,500 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app that's R A K U T E N.