← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Amazon’s Idaho Doc Drops Chilling New Bombshells | One Night in Idaho
00:30:47
Loading summary
Transcript28 lines
- [00:00]
Carvana Customer
Buying a car in Carvana was so easy, I was able to finance it through them. I just.
- [00:04]
Ashley Banfield
Whoa, wait, you mean finance? Yeah, finance.
- [00:07]
Carvana Customer
Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options, all within my budget.
- [00:12]
Ashley Banfield
That's cool. But financing through Carvana was so easy.
- [00:15]
Carvana Customer
Financed, done, and I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow.
- [00:19]
Ashley Banfield
Financed, right?
- [00:20]
Hunter Johnson
That's what they said.
- [00:21]
Carvana Customer
You can spend time trying to pronounce financing or you can actually finance and buy your car. Today on Carvana financing, subject to credit approval, additional terms and conditions may apply.
- [00:31]
Stacy Chapin
There's a time and a plate for a filet of fish, but breakfast is for sausage biscuits. McDonald's breakfast comes first.
- [00:50]
Ashley Banfield
Hey, everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop Dead Serious. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there is a new docu series on Amazon prime that is already sending shockwaves right throughout the true crime world. It's called One Night in Idaho. And now for the first time, this gives us a raw and intimate look inside the lives of the people who were actually there at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. The friends, the siblings, even the parents. The people who lived through the horrors of what happened in that house on November 13th in 2022. This is not just recap of the murders. This is a story about what happened right after, right after the murders happened. What it felt like to to get that phone call. What it was like to stand outside that house. What it means to live in a town where your best friend was murdered. And half the Internet thinks that you did it. So in this episode, we're going to walk through everything new that we've learned from this incredible new series. And there is a lot. There's new interviews, there's un unseen moments, there's heart wrenching, very personal accounts that I would say fill in the biggest blanks that are still left in this just absolutely gripping case. Okay, we're going to start the story today where the docu series starts with that terrible morning in November of 2022 where the kids were more than likely planning to see their families for Thanksgiving, which was just over a week away. Three friends, Hunter Johnson, Emily Allant and Josie Louderan, all friends of the victims, spoke on camera for the new Amazon prime docu series. And what they said in the episodes of One Night in Idaho certainly does help to fill in a lot of blanks in this case. Like what exactly happened in the Hours before that 911 call was placed, and according to them, it started with Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates who was home on the night of the murders. Dylan called Emily and said that she was scared that morning. She said she was shaken and confused. And she told Emily, quote, something weird happened last night. I don't really know if I was dreaming or not, but I'm really scared. Can you come and check out the house? And at the time, Emily said she didn't think much of it. Dylan and Bethany Funk, the other surviving roommate, had called her actually in the past after being spooked by hearing odd noises in the house. So she didn't feel like this was urgent. Josie Lotteran even joked that Dylan had a habit of calling them for backup whenever she got spooked. So they started walking to the house, but, like, just casually, Definitely not in a rush. Definitely did not know that there was anything wrong, really wrong. But everything changed the moment they arrived at 1122 King Road. Dylan and Bethany were outside, visibly rattled. Their hands were covering their mouths, and they looked very frightened. As Hunter Johnson entered the house ahead of the others, he said that he instantly knew that something was very, very wrong. Emily remembers going up the stairs. Josie remembers the second that she stepped inside the house. She said she could feel it. What Hunter saw, though, when he got upstairs has not been described in complete detail yet, at least not to the public. But I assume it has been described in full detail to the police. Maybe it will be released when the gag order is hopefully lifted. It is supposed to be lifted, but I believe that his interview will, in detail, describe what he encountered. But whatever it was, it was enough for him to do something extremely brave and very, very deliberate. Rather than allow his friends who were behind him to see the horrors that lay in front of him, Hunter turned around and he immediately instructed them to.
- [05:05]
911 Operator
Call 911-911-location of your emergency. Hi. Something is happening. Something happened to not help. We don't know what. What is the emergency? What is the rest of the address?
- [05:29]
Ashley Banfield
And here's where Hunter really stepped up. He kept calm despite what Hunter had seen. His instructions were clear and they were deliberate. Leave the house now and call for help. You can hear him on the 91 1. Go, go, go. Get out. Get out. Get out. Right, this was the quote. Tell them there's an unconscious person, Hunter said. Emily later said, quote, hunter saved all of us extreme trauma by not letting us know anything. Dylan was the one who technically placed the 911 call, but Josie said that she had to Take the phone away from Dylan, because Dylan was so hysterical that she couldn't even speak at that point. Josie said she looked at Hunter and he just shook his head and told her, quote, they didn't have a pulse. Josie said that even in that moment, she believed that the paramedics would revive them. A few blocks away, another stark reality was taking shape. Ethan Chapin's brother, another boy named Hunter, was asleep. Hunter said that he was awakened around noon by one of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers. They were shaking him and saying, quote, hunter, you gotta wake up. There's cops on King Street. Hunter said that at first he brushed it off and thought, that's probably normal since the King Road house was notorious for noise complaints. That was a party house, so no big deal, right? So Hunter got dressed and he started walking towards the house where the girlfriend of his brother Ethan lived. And there outside the house was a group of friends sitting on the ground, people he knew, people he'd spent countless hours with in college. And when they looked up at him, something seemed to indicate that the world had shifted on its axis. Hunter asked, quote, where's Ethan? And someone replied, quote, ethan's not here anymore.
- [07:42]
Hunter Johnson
I remember seeing Hunter walking up, and I remember us all turning and being like, oh, my God, like, somebody's gonna have to tell him what just happened.
- [07:51]
Stacy Chapin
I'm like, what the hell's going on? Like, where's Ethan? They're like, ethan's not here anymore. What do you mean, ethan's not here anymore? It's like, where'd he go? They're like, your brother's dead. It's like, that can't be true. And then Hunter Johnson was like, I think Zanna, Ethan, were murdered last night.
- [08:30]
Ashley Banfield
Hunter said it didn't feel real, could not be real. He said, quote, it was so unreal that someone I had spent almost every minute of my life with. And that's where he couldn't finish his thought. He trailed off. His voice cracked, his eyes filled with tears, and there were no words left.
- [08:51]
Stacy Chapin
Didn't even know how to respond to it, because it's, like, so unreal that someone I had spent almost every minute of my life with, I don't even know. Just.
- [09:09]
Ashley Banfield
The next thing Hunter Chapin did was call his sister Maisie. And if you'll remember, Maisie is the third in the set of triplets, the sister of Hunter and Ethan, and she also was attending the University of Idaho. Maisie remembers sitting in the car and driving to 1122 King Road, feeling that something was very, very wrong. But she didn't know everything yet. That instinct, that ache, that shift in the air when you just. No, something massive has happened. That's what Macy said she felt. Fighting back the tears, she said, quote, it was weird. I just knew. And after hearing the unthinkable, her brother Hunter then had to do something even more difficult. He had to make that phone call that no child should ever have to make. He called his mom. Stacy Chapin was at the grocery store just doing something normal, just living her normal Sunday, when her cell phone rang. Hunter was on the other end of the line. And what he said was cryptic. It was heartbreaking, but it was really impossible to understand. He said, quote, ethan's not here. And Stacy's first response was, what exactly you'd expect from a mom who hears that. Well, go get him, she said. But Hunter didn't stop there. He just kept repeating the same thing. Quote, no, you don't understand what I'm telling you, Mom. They're not here. Ethan and Zanna are not here. And still Stacy Chapin couldn't make sense of what her son was telling her. We'll go and get them, she said again. And then Hunter said once more, mom, you don't understand. They're not on this earth anymore.
- [11:00]
Stacy Chapin
I was at the grocery store. I'd run into a friend. And we were standing, having a short little, you know, hello conversation. And my phone started to ring. And it was. It was Hunter's voice. He just said, ethan's not here. That's what he said. Because Ethan's not here. And I'm like, well, go get him. And he just kept repeating it like, they're not. No, you don't understand what I'm telling you, Mom. They're not here. Ethan and Zanna are not here. And I'm like, well, go and get them.
- [11:36]
Like, I couldn't face the fact that he was dead.
- [11:40]
He's like, no, he's. I think he said to me. He goes, mom, you don't understand. They're not on this earth anymore, I believe, is what he said to me. I didn't believe it. I didn't cry. I didn't. I just left my cart and walked out of the grocery store. And I got in the car and I was driving down the road, and I called Jim.
- [12:08]
Jim Chapin
She said, ethan was killed. And I. I wasn't sure what I heard. I go, what? Yeah, something happened to Ethan and he's been killed. So we packed some clothes and we jumped in the car and drove to Moscow.
- [12:37]
Ashley Banfield
While Stacy, at this point knew what had happened to Ethan and his girlfriend Zanna. The parents of the other victims did not know this. In fact, the kids who were outside the house still did not know what had happened to Maddie Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves on the third floor. Even their parents were unaware of the extent of the crime at the home where their kids lived. Maddy Mogan's mother, Karen Laramie, described the moment that she ran into the Moscow police department, desperate to get some answers, desperate to find out what had happened to her daughter. And here's what she told the docu series.
- [13:20]
Hunter Johnson
So we got to the police department. I remember running up the stairs and just trying to find anyone to talk, like anyone to just anyone. And finally they put us in a little room and they came into the back door and kind of opened this file. And the officer kind of explained, there has been a homicide in your daughter's house and there are four victims. And instantly we were like, what? It just made no sense. And he said, maddie was a victim. And then I said, what about Kaylee? He said, kaylee was also a victim.
- [14:19]
Karen Laramie
I just remember just being so angry.
- [14:22]
Ashley Banfield
I was like.
- [14:25]
Karen Laramie
This can't be true. I mean, this is Idaho. I mean, where things like this, you see it on TV and all east coast or something like that, or. And then we found out about the other two and it's like, what is going on here? This is ridiculous. This is unbelievable. This is like, no.
- [14:55]
Hunter Johnson
They couldn't tell us anything. They had no details. So our minds were just circling what could have happened here, what possibly happened in the house.
- [15:11]
Ashley Banfield
And while the families were just beginning to process the unimaginable news, the murders of four innocent college age children of theirs, something else was already spiraling out of control. The Internet. Within hours, social media filled in all these blanks the way it does what law enforcement couldn't and wouldn't reveal. That's where the Internet came in. Because in all honesty, Moscow, Idaho was not ready for a quadruple murder. In fact, they hadn't even had a single murder in that town for seven years. The police department was completely overwhelmed. Their communications were confusing and incomplete and sometimes flat out wrong or contradictory to prior statements that they'd made. At one point, the mayor of Moscow, not law enforcement, became the public face of this crisis. And early on, he called it an isolated incident. And then within days of the quadruple murder, that message would instead be described as a targeted attack at this home, clearly inaccurate. And those descriptions sparked a wildfire because to many, it did not make sense? I mean, honestly, how could there not be an ongoing threat, anybody else, if the person responsible for a brutal quadruple murder like this, a homicide like this, was still somewhere out there on the loose and as yet unidentified? That just didn't make sense. And not just to the kids around the university, not just to the community around Moscow. Pretty much to everybody else who had now heard this unimaginable story. So, just as you'd imagine, the Internet began to fill in the gaps, trying to find answers. Who was behind this? Why weren't they caught yet? Was it one person? Maybe several? Was it a group? Was it the guy at the food truck? Maybe a jilted fraternity brother at Sigma Chi? Was it Hunter Johnson, the friend who found the bodies and called for help? Even the victim's boyfriends were in the crosshairs of suspicion. All of them were accused. Some of them were stalked. Some of them even received death threats. And several of them feared for their lives. Hunter said, quote, I lost my best friend, and people think I killed him. A plethora of baseless allegations and unfounded rumors was getting so incredibly loud that Ethan's own mother, Stacy Chapin, asked Hunter Chapin, point blank, quote, is anything gonna come out? Were drugs involved? And Hunter told her, no. There were no secrets. There were no scandals. There was no dark revelation waiting in the wings. In fact, Emily said, this was the most difficult part of this, that everybody out there thought that this home at 1122 King Road was some wild place filled with drugs and strangers traipsing in and out, and that that just simply wasn't the case. In the docu series, the families described how they were afraid to leave their homes. The lives of the victims were being dissected online. Survivors were being doxxed. And for those living in that maelstrom, it was a nightmare. Not just because they'd lost the people they loved so dearly. Their children and their best friends, their brothers, their sisters, you know, but because now they were being hunted as well. Daniel Barakoa, one of Ethan Chapin's fraternity brothers and one of the last people to see Ethan alive. Put it this way, quote, I was once again fearing for my life, but for a completely different reason. Because in those first weeks, the killer was still out there. No arrest, no answers. Just a town frozen in fear and a digital mob pointing fingers at anybody whose name surfaced. Friends were flooded with messages from strangers. Some leveled total accusations, pointed accusations. Others leveled all out threats. Anonymous accounts said they knew who did it. They promised retribution. They swore they'd expose the truth and destroy the lives of anybody who got in the way. And the irony in all of this? The real killer was still on the loose and was likely enjoying this chaos in the quiet anonymity of his own home. And while the online world was loudly accusing all the wrong people, the real killer was just 10 miles away, watching it all unfold from his student apartment. His name wouldn't surface for another six weeks. But for those who went to school with him, for those who studied criminal justice with him, both in Pennsylvania and in Washington state, his name was unforgettable. Brian Coburger at DeSales University in his home state of Pennsylvania, the fellow students who were there said one thing was always clear when it came to Brian Coburger. He was smart. He was scary smart. He didn't live on campus. He was a commuter student, which made him much more difficult to get to know, much more difficult to read. But for those who did take classes with him, the memories are chilling. In hindsight, one student put it bluntly, quote, he was an oddball. Not just introverted, not just awkward. Quote, he was unable to behave in a normal human manner. End quote. And when it came to solving hypothetical crime scenes, Bryan Kohberger often had the answer. Desales students recall working inside mock crime scene houses, part of Dr. Katherine Ramsland's forensic psychology program. As these were the students that were likely going to be the crime fighters of the future. It was her job to build scenarios for her class. She would plant clues and stage mock murders. And Brian Kohberger was usually the one who could piece it together. The students said that Coburger asked questions that nobody else thought to ask. But even then, they said something was just off. One student, Josh Ferraro, pointed out that Kohberger seemed obsessed with control and with planning and with precision and with perfection. But Josh said that in the practice of criminal justice, crime fighters needed to be flexible. They needed to accommodate for the unexpected. Josh said, quote, 100% of the time, you have to deviate from the plan. And in Josh's view, that is exactly what might have tripped up his old classmate Brian Kohberger. Kohberger drove back to the scene. He went back to the scene of the crime that morning after the murders, Josh says, as he thinks that Kohberger's obsession with perfection likely led him back there because he left the knife sheath behind. My personal opinion here, and I have gone over this dozens and dozens of times, is that Bryan Coburger drove back there not because he wanted to relish in what had happened. That is way too dangerous and way too stupid. I really don't think that that's why he went back to the scene that morning. I think he went back to the scene that morning so that he could drive up the side of the house, hoping that maybe, just maybe, please, for the love of God, in his mind, that knife sheath would have actually dropped outside, not inside the house. Outside the house, right? He was hoping, God, maybe if he got lucky, he'd find it, get it, and get the hell out of there before he was spotted. Right? Maybe it would be right there on the pavement where he parked his car. Maybe it would be right there on the pavement or in the woods or wherever the hell it was. He decided to perhaps change his bloody clothes before he got into that car, because we all know now that that car was spotless, right? Maybe that's why he did it. He did that drive, he did his scan, and he got the hell out of there because his visit to the house that next morning was fast. And he was gone. Nobody was really up and around and realizing what had happened by the time that Brian Coburger was there somewhere around nine in the morning. But when Brian Coburger was finally arrested, the Internet theories exploded, and the docu series drilled down on one name that's drawn obsessive attention. Papa Roger. A mysterious Facebook account, a commenter who posted relentlessly in an online discussion group, and the administrators of that group. The group called University of Idaho Case Discussion Group, pointed to a post from November 30, well before the knife sheath that was left behind at the murder scene was ever known to anyone in the public. And in that post, Papa Roger suggested that perhaps the knife sheath was left behind at the crime scene. Members of the group, like many other people, believe that only the killer and the cops could have known that detail. Papa Roger also suggested early on that the killer drove up the road beside the house and scrambled down the embankment into the backyard for easy and shadowy access to the sliding glass door at the back of the house, which is exactly where Kohberger gained his murderous entry. So after unpacking the Papa Roger theory, the docu series shifts back to Pullman, Washington, focusing on Bryan Kohberger's time at Washington State University, where he was still trying to find his footing, even applying for jobs there. And one of those jobs was as an assistant to the campus police. And the police chief remembered the interview. He said that Kohberger's demeanor was awkward, his speech patterns weren't fluid, and most importantly, he didn't come off as trustworthy. The police chief said, quote, that was one area where I felt he might fall short. End quote. And then, in a final gut punch, the closing of the docuseries. Maddie Mogan's mom, Karen Laramie, said that a year ago, she would not have been able to sit for an interview. But now she says that she's chosen to live differently, to live for Maddie, to live the way that Maddie would have wanted her to live. And she showed Maddie's yellow Idaho sweatshirt, the exact same sweatshirt that Maddie is pictured in, sitting up on top of Kaylee's shoulders, smiling. In a photograph that was taken just hours before these kids were murdered. Hunter and Emily, the two students who were called to the house that morning, they shared how everything in their lives has now changed. Hunter described how he was forced to grow up immediately in the aftermath of these murders and how he was no longer just a college student. Emily said, quote, I had a vision of what I wanted my life to look like, and I've given up some of my goals. At the time of the filming, the house at 1122 King Road was still standing. And Hunter Chapin, Ethan's brother, still lived nearby. He said that he had to see that house every morning from his window. And with his voice cracking, he said, quote, I just want it to go away so I don't have to look at it anymore. And then Jim Chapin, Ethan's father, recounted his son's life and his love of family, and then he shared what happened to Ethan's remains. Ethan's dad explained that after the murders, the family couldn't agree on where Ethan should be buried because no place really felt right. Nothing felt settled. And so they brought him home, and that is where he is now, right there in their home. Jim said that the decision came down to something heartbreakingly simple. They didn't want Ethan to be alone. And so every day they sit with him and they talk with him and they visit with him. And when the time comes, when one of them passes away, Ethan will be buried alongside them. This is so hard to hear because for the last two and a half years, I got to know Stacy Chapin. We communicate. We called, we talked by text, not often, but I really felt like I started to get to know her, and I could really feel how little she wanted to do with the horrors of what happened on campus. She wanted to move away from there and be at peace with her family. But at the same time, she couldn't escape the legal drama that was playing out with Bryan Coburger. She couldn't escape the media that would constantly want to know what she was thinking. Was she on board with the plans and what was happening? Would she attend the trial and eventually with the plea deal, did she want the plea deal? Did she appreciate it? Did she hate the plea deal? And ultimately, I could feel Stacy moving away from me as well, even though early in our relationship I was helping her to move through this new world of hers, given that I'd been through this so many times and I have friends who now I met through the true crime that befell their families. And I could feel Stacy not even wanting that. She didn't want any more guidance. She didn't want to have anybody familiar, other parents who'd lost their kids in awful ways. She wasn't really interested in any of that. And so I could see so easily how the plea deal made sense for her and for her family. Get it over with. She did say to me early on, nothing's going to bring Ethan back. Nothing is going to change anything for my family. So I, I get it. I completely understand how the plea deal allows Stacy to move on with her other children and, and with her husband and with Ethan in a way, as they navigate the future of their lives together. Bryan Coburger is set to be sentenced on July 23, and Ethan Chapin's parents have said they're not going to attend. They instead plan to spend the day on the lake with the family. Makes perfect sense. Steve Gonzalves told me that the date conflicts with back to school plans for one of his surviving kids, college plans, and that he's doubtful he's going to be able to attend. At one point, they thought maybe they would try to negotiate with the court so that they could take their kid to college and still be able to attend the sentencing. But I sense that he's becoming exhausted as well. Other families, they haven't made all of their plans public yet, but whatever they plan to do, it will make sense for them. And I really, really hope that everybody else who is not attached to this, that is just an outside observer, allows them their personal peace, their personal comfort, because everyone's different and they deal with grief differently and they need to be given that latitude. So that's my plea to all of you. If you watch this and if you've been following the case, just appreciate and pray for all of these families and friends and sisters and brothers and moms and dads and grandparents that, that they are going to be able to move on. You can't say with closure there is no such thing, but with some oticum of peace. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for listening. I so appreciate this community. If you remember one thing today, remember this. The truth is not just serious, it's drop dead serious.