Legally Brunette: The Idaho College Murders

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Legally Brunette: The Idaho College Murders"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Description: Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge team up to tell all, rehashing real-life cases with their unique perspective. Who knows the complexities of human behavior better than those who dissect them?

Episode Details:

• Episode Title: Legally Brunette: The Idaho College Murders
• Release Date: April 2, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this episode of "Legally Brunette," hosts Emily Simpson and her sidekick Shane delve into two gripping cases: an update on the Kimberly Sullivan stepmother case and an in-depth analysis of the Brian Coburger Idaho college murders. Their candid discussions offer listeners a comprehensive understanding of the cases, enriched with personal insights and critical questioning.

2. Update on the Kimberly Sullivan Case

Emily begins by providing an update on the previously discussed Kimberly Sullivan case, where Sullivan, a stepmother, allegedly kept her stepson confined for two decades.

Key Points:

• Biological Mother Emerges: Tracy, the biological mother, came forward stating she relinquished custody 32 years ago for personal reasons, believing it was in her son's best interest.

  • Emily Simpson (00:39): "She the biological mom came forward and the biological mom is a 52-year-old woman named Tracy."

• Struggle for Reconnection: Tracy expressed her efforts to reconnect over the years, only to be continually shut out by the father and Sullivan.

  • Emily Simpson (01:23): "In retrospect, this does not come to pass. For the last 30 years, my family and I have searched for him to reconnect, only to be turned away and shut out."

• Impact on the Victim: The half-sister, using social media and online tools, tried unsuccessfully to locate her brother, who has been subjected to prolonged abuse.

  • Shane (03:02): "So, you know, it's kind. Now it's kind of sad because these people wanted to look for him and they were probably hopeful they'd have a relationship with him and then he was in a good place and now they could reconnect now that maybe the mom is in a better situation and only to find out that he, he was tortured for the past 20 years."

3. The Attempted Murder Case in Hawaii

Shifting focus, Emily and Shane discuss a recent case where a husband, Gerhard Koenig, attempted to murder his wife, Ariel, in Hawaii.

Key Points:

• Incident Overview: On March 24, 2025, Gerhard attempted to push Ariel off a cliff during a planned birthday trip.

  • Emily Simpson (05:44): "He tried to push his wife, Ariel, off of a cliff in Oahu on a trip that he planned for her birthday."

• Details of the Attack: Ariel describes how Gerhard's demeanor changed when she hesitated to take a selfie at the cliff's edge, leading to the violent attempt.

  • Emily Simpson (06:41): "She wrote she thought he was joking at first... then she claims that she quickly realized that he was not joking, that he was seriously trying to make me fall off of the cliff."

• Survival and Arrest: Thanks to bystanders who intervened, Ariel survived, and Gerhard was apprehended the same evening.

  • Emily Simpson (09:01): "The woman holding a medical bag."

• Legal Proceedings: With bail set at $5 million, the case is poised for a preliminary hearing on March 30.

  • Emily Simpson (10:22): "Her children and the rest of her family... bail has been set at 5 million and he is expected back in court on March 30 for a preliminary hearing."

4. Deep Dive: The Brian Coburger Idaho College Murders

The core of the episode centers on the heinous crimes committed by Brian Coburger, leading to the tragic deaths of four University of Idaho students.

4.1. Case Background and Timeline

On the night of November 13, 2020, Brian Coburger allegedly murdered four students: Kaylee Goncalves (21), Madison Mogan (21), Zanna Kernodle (20), and Ethan Chapin (20).

• Incident Details: The murders occurred between 4:00 AM and 4:25 AM at an off-campus residence.
  • Emily Simpson (12:35): "In the early hours of November 13th in 2020... these were off-campus residents."

4.2. Investigation and Evidence

Digital Footprint and Genetic Genealogy:

• DNA Evidence: A knife sheath with Coburger's DNA was found at the crime scene, but the knife itself remains missing.

  • Emily Simpson (34:11): "They found through his digital footprint, he purchased the knife with the sheath and the knife sharpener."

• Genetic Genealogy: Since no matches were found in CODIS, investigators utilized investigative genetic genealogy, tracing Coburger through his father and further linking him to the crime.

  • Emily Simpson (39:44): "They ran the DNA and when that didn't turn up a match, investigators turned to genetic genealogy."

Purchase of Knife and Ski Mask:

• Weapon Acquisition: Coburger purchased a K-Bar knife eight months prior to the murder, raising suspicions about its intended use.

  • Emily Simpson (44:38): "Coburger bought the same knife eight months before the killings... prosecutors say."

• Ski Mask Evidence: The mask worn by the attacker matched a specific style, and surveillance confirmed Coburger's presence near the crime scene.

  • Emily Simpson (45:16): "She drew what kind of mask he wore and it matched that type exactly."

Surveillance and Vehicle Activity:

• Car Surveillance: Coburger's white Hyundai Elantra was spotted multiple times near the crime scene on the night of the murders.

  • Emily Simpson (46:05): "His vehicle was picked up on surveillance video near the crime scene multiple times between 3:29am and 4:20am."

• Vehicle Registration: The car was registered in Washington five days post-murders, suggesting an attempt to obscure its origins.

  • Emily Simpson (47:35): "He registered his car in Washington on November 18, five days after the killings."

4.3. Motive and Connections to Victims

While direct motives remain unclear, evidence suggests Coburger may have developed an obsessive fixation on the victims through social media interactions.

• Online Interactions: Coburger's Instagram activity indicated he followed and engaged with some of the victims, implying a possible premeditated motive.
  • Emily Simpson (63:17): "Coburger's Instagram account had interacted with Maddie’s Instagram... he was actively looking at Maddie’s photos."

4.4. Defense Strategy

The defense is anticipated to challenge the validity of the genetic genealogy evidence and question the thoroughness of the investigation.

• Suppression of Evidence: Attempts to suppress the genealogy data on constitutional grounds are underway.

  • Emily Simpson (41:57): "The defense is obviously trying to suppress... they are going to try and definitely use that to tear apart."

• Alternative Explanations: The defense may argue alternate sources for the DNA evidence and question the chain of custody.

  • Shane (42:12): "DNA is DNA. So what's the argument to be made?"

4.5. Current Status and Trial Expectations

With the trial scheduled for August 11th, the case remains under intense scrutiny. Key factors include the overwhelming DNA evidence, the digital footprint linking Coburger to the victims, and the prosecution's detailed timeline of events.

• House Demolition: The crime scene residence was demolished to mitigate its impact on the community, a decision opposed by the victims' families.

  • Emily Simpson (68:09): "The house was demolished during winter break to try to decrease further impact on the students who live in that area."

• Hostility in Jury Selection: Moving the venue to Boise poses challenges in finding an unbiased jury, given the widespread awareness of the case.

  • Shane (70:14): "We've clearly cracked the case."

5. Conclusion

Emily and Shane's thorough examination of the Brian Coburger case sheds light on the complexities of modern investigative techniques, such as genetic genealogy, and the challenges in prosecuting well-connected individuals with extensive digital footprints. Their critical analysis raises pertinent questions about the reliability of witness testimonies and the potential for defense strategies to exploit investigative gaps. As the trial approaches, listeners are left anticipating a resolution that addresses both the evidence presented and the ethical considerations surrounding privacy and due process.

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Notable Quotes:

• Shane (04:00): "It almost couldn't have been a worse life."
• Emily Simpson (05:16): "I hope that he has some... support."
• Shane (10:07): "What time was the 911 call?"
• Emily Simpson (37:24): "He was looking for the knife again... to say, hey, I do have it. It's right here."
• Emily Simpson (56:03): "The knife, she... on this K Bar knife, which we knew."
• Shane (67:53): "Defense will probably come up with the... my client isn't all right."

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This summary provides a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode, capturing the essence of the hosts' discussions, critical insights, and the intricate details of the cases explored.

Transcript

[Emily Simpson]

Hi guys. Welcome to another episode of Legally Brunette. I'll be your host, Emily Simpson with my sidekick Shane. I love how Shane always just has a first name. It's never Shane Simpson. It's like Cher, Madonna and Shane.

[Shane]

Yes.

[Emily Simpson]

Anyway, we're just gonna do a little update. If you listen to the last episode, we did a little tidbit on this Kimberly Sullivan case, which is the crazy stepmom who kept her steps son locked away for 20 years. Anyway, there's just a little bit of an update on that. She the biological mom, which we were questioning before. Remember when we were talking about this case, like where is the. Oh yeah, because it's the stepmom that kept him.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

Locked away.

[Shane]

Find out.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes. So there was a USA article that came out that. So the biological mom came forward and the biological mom is a 52 year old woman named Tracy. And she was. Who identified herself as the biological mother of Kimberly Sullivan's stepson. And she said 32 years ago, due to personal reasons and for the full benefit of my son, she made the gut wrenching decision to give full custody to the ex husband. First of all, I just have to say as a mother, I can never wrap my brain around someone giving away full custody of their children, regardless of the circumstances. I just, I cannot imagine any scenario where I give up my children unless.

[Shane]

It was a full blown adoption scenario. Like a parent is giving away the child for a better life to go into.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay, no, I understand that. I guess I don't understand a situation where you're the biological mother, you have the child, but then you give up full custody to the other parent and then you just don't want any kind of visitation or, or anything.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Anyway, she said it was a painful, emotional decision that's hard for any mother to make. But she thought it would have. She thought her son would have a better life. Which is the irony here. In retrospect, this does not come to pass. For the last 30 years, my family and I have searched for him to reconnect, only to be turned away and shut out. So she claims that they have been looking for him and that she had reached out and that basically the father and the stepmom didn't want her to have anything to do with the child.

[Shane]

Well, yeah, because she was going to find out he was locked in a room probably.

[Emily Simpson]

She claims that the last few days have been so shocking, disturbing and disgusting to even seem true. I hope and pray we can all begin to heal and help my son to lead a full, happy, loving life. I know deep in my heart, I have always been there for him and always will. Please grant us time, peace and respect as we cope with this tragic situation. So she said that she had tried to be in her son's life. She also has a daughter who would be the. The man who was. I guess they never released his name. I just keep calling him the man. But he's the stepson and the one that was the victim. The victim that was locked away. He has a half sister. And apparently the half sister had been using social media and other online tools to try and find her brother for years, but had not had any success. Well, we know he's not on social media because he's been tortured for the past 20 years.

[Shane]

So, you know, it's kind. Now it's kind of sad because these people wanted to look for him and they were probably hopeful they'd have a relationship with him and then he was in a good place and that maybe, you know, he had good upbringing and now they could reconnect now that maybe the mom is in a better situation and only to find out that he, he. He was, you know.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, well, I mean, how devastated would you be as a mother if her intent in the beginning was really she did give up custody because she thought he would have a better life with the father who maybe was more.

[Shane]

She might have thought it would be less co parenting issues and maybe he could have some stability because maybe they were at odds. And so she thought, you know what, Instead of me fighting this father all the time, maybe I'll give him a stable household and just let him go.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. But then to think 30 years later, find out that you gave away full custody of your child because you thought they would have a better life. And then you, you come to learn that they were locked away, starved, emaciated, tortured.

[Shane]

It almost couldn't have been a worse life.

[Emily Simpson]

Had to set their house on fire in order to get someone's attention and be saved. His half sister says, I just want him to know that he has a big sister. And I've always known he had. That he's existed. I've always loved him and I've always been trying to find him. I've been looking for him for a decade. I wanted to wait until he was 18. I'm almost 35 now. There was nothing. No social media, no court records. So it, it seems to me that she did kind of try to do a deep dive.

[Shane]

Didn't exist. And I bet you the parents deliberately were not on the Internet.

[Emily Simpson]

Also, probably they Were probably hiding this. Hiding everything about this. This family life.

[Shane]

Now they're all over the Internet.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. So Kimberly Sullivan, who is the stepmom, this stepson, I don't know where she's at as far as a case. I mean, she was arrested and I don't think we've had any update.

[Shane]

What? I don't know. But let's hope she doesn't get. Doesn't see the light of day.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So the stepson and his biological mother have not connected since this discovery, which was a month ago. But the mother told NBC Connecticut that she hopes that they reunite soon. I hope so too.

[Shane]

I hope he's gonna need some support.

[Emily Simpson]

I hope that he has some. Yes. And it sounds like the sister is very interested in being a part of his life. So hopefully there is some happy ending for this. This man because.

[Shane]

And maybe he can get. Maybe he can collect the insurance proceeds from the.

[Emily Simpson]

From the fire. He deserves at least that much. Yes. All right, here's another interesting story. I just want to do a little brief background on some of these smaller cases. And then we're actually going to go into the Brian Coburger case, which is the Idaho murders case. I just. I read this and I actually found this. I don't know why I found it interesting. Maybe because it's a husband and wife and we're a husband. I don't know.

[Shane]

Now I'm curious to know what it says. Wife kills husband. I find this interesting.

[Emily Simpson]

No, it's actually husband tries to kill a wife, but.

[Shane]

Oh, okay.

[Emily Simpson]

So this is Ariel and his name's Gerhard Koenig. He is a man accused of trying to kill his wife in Hawaii. This just recently happened. So on Monday, March 24, 46 year old Gerhard tried to push his wife, Ariel off of a cliff in Oahu on a trip that he planned for her birthday.

[Shane]

This. So they're not from Hawaii?

[Emily Simpson]

No, I think they live in Maui, actually.

[Shane]

Okay, so they're locals.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes.

[Shane]

And so a little adventure for her birthday.

[Emily Simpson]

He plans a birthday trip.

[Shane]

Surprise. Yes, push.

[Emily Simpson]

The couple, who have been married for six years and share two young children together, live in Maui. Ariel told the story of her attempted murder in her own words and an application for a restraining order against her husband on Thursday. So he. He.

[Shane]

How did she succeed? How did she overcome his pushing her off a cliff?

[Emily Simpson]

Okay, so let's get into the details of this. Gerhard, who is the husband, suggested that they take a hike on a trail near one of the local lookouts. In her court filing, she noted the topography of the trail, saying it was very narrow ridge sections with steep drop offs on both sides. He then wanted a selfie at the edge of the cliff, but she was uncomfortable and moved away. He's like, no, one foot off the cliff. Closer a little more. She said that was when her husband tried to push her. He was yelling something to the effect of, get back over here. I'm so effing sick of you. And he continued to push me. She wrote she thought he was joking at first. I don't know why I would.

[Shane]

Oh, so he. So he. He wants to give her some last words before he pushes her off.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, he's mad because she's moving away. She's not close enough to the edge, so he's yelling at her to get back over there. And then she claims that she quickly realized that he was not joking, that he was seriously trying to make me fall off of the cliff. She then writes, and this is an application for a restraining order, that she threw herself onto the ground, away from the edge to save herself, at which point her husband climbed on top of her. At one point, she said, this is a doctor, by the. By the way. He's an anesthesiologist. He grabbed his bag and pulled out a syringe and vial and tried to inject her.

[Shane]

He brought his medical bag?

[Emily Simpson]

Yes. Wouldn't that have been a sign? Don't you think? He's like, let's go on a hike, but I'm just gonna bring my. My anesthesiologist bag with me.

[Shane]

Wow. So. So he's attempting to inject her with something.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. So.

[Shane]

So comes that, too.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So she's awesome.

[Emily Simpson]

I know. She's a badass, right?

[Shane]

Should have pushed him off the cliff.

[Emily Simpson]

I do not know what was in the syringe, But Gerdhart is an anesthesiolog, Potentially lethal medications as part of his employment, she wrote in this court filing. Ultimately, the doctor, who's the husband, grabbed a rock and began to pound her in the head. Ms. Koenig told police that he also grabbed her hair and smashed her face into the ground. Luckily for her, there were two women farther down the trail that interview that intervened, and they told police that they heard a woman screaming for help. One of the women told police that she ran ahead and saw a man hitting a woman in the head with a rock. He is trying to kill me.

[Shane]

The woman holding a medical bag.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes. A man with a medical bag and a syringe close to the edge of a cliff on a trail was beating her over the head with a rock. They shouted that they were calling 911 and the man fled. The women then helped Ms. Koenig down the trail. I like that he flees like no one's gonna know it's him.

[Shane]

Hopefully they won't be able to identify my wife, won't be able to identify me.

[Emily Simpson]

Police pull out an all points bulletin for Dr. Koenig and shut down the area around the lookout and trails during a multi hour manhunt. He was found and taken into custody about 6pm that evening. In the interim, Ms. Koenig said she learned that Dr. Koenig had called one of his adult children. So he has adult children with a different wife? I guess he called.

[Shane]

They have a children together.

[Emily Simpson]

They have two young children together and they were married for six years. But apparently he called one of his adult children via FaceTime. Allegedly he was covered in blood and said, I just tried to kill Ari. But she got away.

[Shane]

Yeah. Can you, can you be my alibi?

[Emily Simpson]

It's, it's. I hate that I'm laughing at this, but this.

[Shane]

Well, if she didn't survive, we certainly.

[Emily Simpson]

No, but she, she survived.

[Shane]

So I mean not. She didn't survive without any trauma.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. Ms. Koenig wrote that she is afraid for herself. Well, that's seems.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Obvious at this point. Her children and the rest of her family. If her husband is released on bail. His bail has been set at 5 million and he is expected back in court on March 30for a preliminary hearing. I find this case so interesting that I feel like we might have to do a followup after his March 31st preliminary hearing.

[Shane]

I just clearly, poorly executed.

[Emily Simpson]

Clearly not well thought out or he underestimated how strong his wife is. I think he thought he was just going to be able to push her off the edge really easily. So.

[Shane]

My goodness.

[Emily Simpson]

All right, let's get into the bulk of.

[Shane]

What do we know the motive.

[Emily Simpson]

I, you know, I have a mistress. I assumed that there was a mistress because when I was reading and it said he FaceTimed, I thought it was going to say he FaceTimed his mistress, but it wasn't his mistress.

[Shane]

But his daughter wasn't in on it or anything or there's no. No. Not known anything about that.

[Emily Simpson]

Not that we know of right now. Although it makes me speculate because he called the adult child and said like she got away.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

Basically. So I don't know if other people were involved in this plot. We shall stay tuned and let you know of any updates on this case. But Shane is not taking me to Maui or Oahu anytime soon. I refuse to go. All right, all right.

[Shane]

Let's get off to be more creative.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. Think of something better than that.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay. Let's get into the bulk of this episode. We really wanted to do the Brian Coburger case, which is the Idaho student murders. I've had tons and tons of you guys out there that have been listening to Legally Brunette. Thank you, by the way. Dming me and asking us to go through it. So he does go on trial soon. I believe it's August 11th. So this will be just an episode of the background, the facts, the evidence, where we're at currently. And then we hope to most likely follow the trial once he goes to trial. Let's do a little bit of the background of this case. Let's just give some background information so we're all on the same page. So in the early hours of November 13th in 2020, 2 University of Idaho students. It was Kaylee goncalves who was 21, Madison Mogan, 21, Zanna Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

[Shane]

How many lived in the house?

[Emily Simpson]

So there were five girls that lived within the house. Ethan was staying the night with his girlfriend Zanna. He did not live in the home. And then there were the two survivors. So on this night, on November 13, 2022, there were four college students were murdered and they're off campus residents. 30 year old Brian Coburger has been accused of the murders and is being charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he did not. I don't know if you knew this, but when they asked him how he pleaded, he just, he stayed silent. So the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

[Shane]

They should have entered a guilty plea. If you don't say anything, then you're going to be guilty. Yeah, but then it would be easy. Then you just sentence someone.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, but I feel, I feel like that's unconstitutional. I don't know.

[Shane]

I wasn't talking about legality.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Shane]

I mean, the guy's clearly a nut as a murderer.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, we, he is innocent until proven guilty, so we have to, we have to stick with that. If convicted, he could face the death penalty in Idaho also. I know, I don't know if you read this.

[Shane]

The method of death penalty in Idaho.

[Emily Simpson]

I don't know. I didn't look that up.

[Shane]

I'm going to look it up.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay.

[Shane]

You got to look up these important facts.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, I, I really need to Prepare myself for all the questions. I don't know what the. I don't know. What would it be? Chair, electric chair or lethal injection? Aren't those the only two methods?

[Shane]

Firing squad.

[Emily Simpson]

They do use a firing squad.

[Shane]

Utah uses the firing squad. There was someone that was executed this month, I think, I don't remember what state that chose the firing squad.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, wow.

[Shane]

That's what I would choose.

[Emily Simpson]

You would choose the firing squad?

[Shane]

Yeah, Well, I would choose not to commit crimes that are.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, you mean that would be your first choice.

[Shane]

Punishment. But yeah, I've thought about this. You stand there with a blindfold.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Right?

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

You don't really know what's going on. And it's just.

[Emily Simpson]

What do you mean you don't know what's going on? You know you're gonna get shot.

[Shane]

I guess you don't see what's going on.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

Like. Like the lethal injection is. There's too many steps.

[Emily Simpson]

I don't understand why there's.

[Shane]

So they're strapping you down. There's multiple injections. They, you know all this stuff and it's like a slow process to your death. Okay, firing squad. I go stand there. There's 10 armed men that stand in front of you, or however many there is. Only one has a bullet. I don't know how that really helps their conscious, but. Yeah, that way you don't know who did it. That's the same with the electric chair. There was multiple switches and you. You flipped them and you didn't know which one did it. Why?

[Emily Simpson]

Is that supposed to protect the person firing?

[Shane]

Yeah. So maybe they have some conscience of, well, I don't know if it was me that killed him, which is like I. But I was willing to point a gun at him and pull the trigger anyway. It's just one quick shot in the heart and that's it and it's over.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. So that's what you would choose.

[Shane]

Yeah. Firing squad is now the primary method of execution and lethal injection is an alternative. See, I was right.

[Emily Simpson]

That's crazy to me. All right. There were two survivors from that night. The roommates were Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk. They were home at the time of the murders. There's a lot of interesting things that go on with that. We're going to get more in detail into that. So the events of that night after a busy Saturday night out, all the roommates were back at the house by approximately 2am the morning of November 13th. Kernodle and Chapin, they're the ones that are dating, have been At a party at a frat house. And Maddie Mogan and Gun Calves were at a local bar. Then they stopped at a food truck. It was called the grub truck. I actually was very interested in the food truck.

[Shane]

I know. I knew the food truck would catch you.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, I did. For a late night snack. And there's actually video surveillance on the food truck because they. I guess what they do, they put it onto Tick Tock or something like all the.

[Shane]

It's like a. Oh, so it's like a marketing.

[Emily Simpson]

A marketing thing for them. So there was actually very clear footage.

[Shane]

I also provide security they might document in case someone steals.

[Emily Simpson]

Someone steals tacos.

[Shane]

Yeah. Here comes Emily again. Tacos, right.

[Emily Simpson]

If I was ever gonna commit a crime, it would be some. It would be stealing.

[Shane]

Eating someone's.

[Emily Simpson]

It would. Eating somebody else's tacos. Yeah. Zanna Kernodle briefly left her room to grab a doordash order at around 4am According to court documents.

[Shane]

You know, it's really funny that all these things nowadays provide a digital footprint like doordash, you know, ring, camera.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes.

[Shane]

Door dash. Even the food truck has apparently is live streaming or whatever.

[Emily Simpson]

Honestly, I was thinking about this in this case because the digital footprint is so interesting and how they tracked Brian Coburger back to this. Back to this crime. And it made me think it's really difficult to commit crimes now.

[Shane]

Well, certain crimes. Wait. Apparently you can push someone off a cliff as long as you're strong enough.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, there's not rain footage on these trails.

[Shane]

No. Everything here is going to be like modern day. Like tracking. Right. That's how they're going to get them.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So the third floor of the house. House Goncalves and her dog in one room. And then Mogan was in another bedroom. Yet the night when the murders occurred, the two of them were sleeping in the same bed when they were murdered. And the dog was in the other room. Kernodle and Chapin were on the second floor and so was Mortensen. And Mortensen was the one that was that lived. According to the affidavit, Funk was the lone occupant on the first floor where the front door was. Around 4am Mortensen woke up to noises upstairs. And she told police she thought Goncalves was playing with her dog on the third floor. Then she heard crying coming from the direction of Kernodle's room and looked outside once more. From above. She then felt like she heard a male voice that wasn't Chapin saying something to the effect of it's okay. I'm going to help you. This is all according to the affidavit that was filed. It's not clear where the male's voice was coming from. Mortensen heard crying again. And open the door. I think this is the third time she opens the door. And this time, when she opens the door, she sees a figure clad in black clothing, with a mask covering their mouth and nose, walking forward towards her. Then she freezes is what she says. And she's just stand there, shocked.

[Shane]

Be scary. Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

And he walks past her and goes out the sliding door. Mortensen froze and the person walked past her.

[Shane]

That begs some questions.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, there's a lot of questions which.

[Shane]

We don't have answers. Yeah, no, but like, why didn't he attack her?

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

You know, he probably knew he was covered, so she couldn't identify him. So maybe. But. But why did he kill someone, not the others? Right. Maybe that wasn't part of the plan. Like, she sprung on him and he thought. And so this wasn't part of his plan. He thought he already executed everything, and then he didn't want to improvise his. You know, a fifth murder.

[Emily Simpson]

Right? Around 4:17am A security camera less than 50ft from Kernodle's bedroom wall picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud. According to the affidavit, a dog can also be heard barking. Okay, I have a lot of questions about what happened that night.

[Shane]

The did not die, correct?

[Emily Simpson]

No, the dog did not die.

[Shane]

So what is the. Did the dog provide a statement?

[Emily Simpson]

The dog did not provide a statement. I have so many questions, though. First of all, let me just ask you. Do you think he was targeting all of the students in that house, or do you think he went in to kill one and then was surprised that they were sharing a bedroom, and then he felt like he had to kill the other one, and then maybe he heard some other noises and then had to go to the other room and kill them. And then was surprised that there was a boyfriend there and then had to kill him. And he ends up killing four people, but only. But not with the intent to kill all of them. Do you know what I mean?

[Shane]

I have no idea. How would I know what he was thinking?

[Emily Simpson]

I don't know, but I'm just. That's what goes on.

[Shane]

You're simplifying. You're saying, was he trying to kill one person? And then more got mixed in.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, because the two girls were sharing a room, and they normally don't share a Room. So my question is, was he targeting one of those girls? Possibly. He comes into the house. He comes in clad in black. He has the knife. He kills one of the girls, and then he's like. And then there's another one in the bed. They're sleeping.

[Shane]

In the end, was he stalking one of them? Do we know that?

[Emily Simpson]

We. We don't know that. I did read that apparently Brian Coburger was a vegan, and he frequented a Greek restaurant where Maddie and Kaylee worked. And we assume. Or I've read it somewhere, there's some assumption that he. Or allegedly he was following them on Instagram. And I had read somewhere. And if anyone is out there listening. And you. You're more clear on this, I know that I have read somewhere that they did find some DMS. Not that she had answered, but he had DM'd her. Just kind of like, hey, what's up? Like, slid into. I can't remember if it was Maddie or Kaylee, but had slid into their.

[Shane]

But nonetheless, there's some connection. He saw two of the girls at some restaurant that he frequented, and then he. He. There was a connection on Instagram to him and the household.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So my question is. And I know I'm.

[Shane]

But they didn't go to the same school or anything. They had no other ties together?

[Emily Simpson]

No, he. He was. He was a PhD student at Washington State, and then they were all Idaho. University of Idaho students, like, undergrad. And he was in the PhD program in criminology elsewhere. Elsewhere.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay. First of all, I also have to say that this case. Me reading this case and researching this case, I didn't realize how bad at geography I am because I had no idea that Washington State bordered Idaho. I know you're looking at me like I'm an idiot, but I. I did not know that Idaho had that top.

[Shane]

Part that goes up, the little stack.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, yeah. It's like a chimney that goes up and borders Washington. Because when I kept reading that, they were only, like 10 miles apart, these two college campuses, one in Washington state and one in Idaho, I'm like, how are. How are they 10 miles apart? How is Washington 10 miles from Idaho? Apparently, they border each other. And I didn't even know that.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Anyway, back. I just had to throw that in there.

[Shane]

Well, it's legally Burnett. It's not geography.

[Emily Simpson]

Exactly. I had no idea. Anyway, apparently he had frequented.

[Shane]

Topography.

[Emily Simpson]

Topography.

[Shane]

Geography is more like the rocks, and the landfill is maps.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay. Anyway. Okay, now I know they border each other. He apparently had followed these girls on instagram and had DM'd one of them a few times. So he knew who they were. I. I would be under the assumption that he possibly followed them home and that's how he knew where they lived.

[Shane]

Yeah, at some point, I'm sure he did. Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

If he, if it was targeted, then he had to have done that.

[Emily Simpson]

So then back to my question was, did he target one of the girls or both the girls and then end up killing four people that night because he wasn't aware that there were so many people up at that time or whatever. Anyway, what's interesting is I feel like a lot of these gaps in this case will be filled in when he goes to trial. All right, so at 4:20am Mortenson started frantically calling her roommates, Kernodle Goncalves. Then back to Kernodle again. She called Mogan. That's Maddie Mogan again, before texting Bethany Funk. Bethany Funko is another one that is a. Does not perish that night. And she says no one is answering. Bethany then had also tried calling Maddie and Kaylee and Chapin during that time, Kaylee Mortensen texted to her, what's going on? The text message remained unanswered. Investigators believe the four roommates were killed sometime between 4am and 4:25am so basically there's the DoorDash order at 4, then there's some noises. They're texting the roommates, asking them what's going on. Then at 4:25, I believe they know at 4:25 because this is when they catch the white Elantra on surveillance video leaving at a rapid rate from their house.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

So the. He basically entered the home, murdered four people with a K Bar knife within a 20 minute time frame. Yeah, I mean, I guess.

[Shane]

Well, it has to be. I mean, I hate song.

[Emily Simpson]

And on two different floors.

[Shane]

It has to be kind of quick because it's. People are going to run. Right. So you can't. He kind of. I mean, he's gruesome anyway. Clearly he's a nut. So it's not you. And I think, like, that's horrific. I could never do that in 20 minutes. But he had to do it quick. Otherwise others would wake up, they would call the police, they would run. So I had to be executed really quickly.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay, here's my other question. And this is another thing that goes on in my head. There's four people. There's two in a room to another room. They had to have been so intoxicated.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

That they didn't make a lot of noise.

[Shane]

Do we know if they were? I mean, I mean, I know it's college and this and that and you know, they're out getting.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, I mean, they were out, both of them. One was at a frat, the two were at a frat party, the other one was at a bar. I mean, clearly they were intoxicated.

[Shane]

Okay, they came home, some level of intoxication.

[Emily Simpson]

But I'm just saying, for a man to overcome two girls and then to move to another bedroom and a girl and her boyfriend with little to no noise. I mean, the other two that are survivors, they don't hear screaming, they don't hear fighting, they don't. There's not furniture being overturned.

[Shane]

Why? I don't know. I haven't seen.

[Emily Simpson]

I mean, all they hear is some slight whimpering voices.

[Shane]

Remember in the beginning I had the prejudgment of, oh, they were probably wasted. And they. One, sometimes people don't want to call the cops because they'll say they had drugs in their system or pod or whatever. And the other one is they were just kind of not all there to be able to quickly react. And they probably just went back to sleep.

[Emily Simpson]

So you're saying just the alcohol level on all four of them probably led to him being able to easily murder.

[Shane]

Them without a lot of possibly one scenario.

[Emily Simpson]

Because I'm just thinking about girlfriend and the boyfriend in the room together, in the bed together. And if he slips into the room and he's murder, he's got a murder one. What is the other one doing? I mean, maybe they're passed out, they don't notice it.

[Shane]

I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

I'm just going to tell you. If someone is murdering me and we're in bed together, I need you to fight back. Back.

[Shane]

Okay, I'll try to wake up.

[Emily Simpson]

Can you please get up and do something? All right, all right.

[Shane]

You mean save him? He'd probably beat the crap out of him.

[Emily Simpson]

Probably, yeah. Anyway, let's get back to these text messages. So there's a lot of text messages going on between the two surviving roommates and the four that are upstairs in the second and third floor of the house. Bethany replies. Yeah, dude, wtf With Mortensen describing someone in quote, like a ski mask almost. So she's. So she's actually texting the other roommate saying that she saw someone in a ski mask in the house.

[Shane]

Yeah. And I could see her not wanting to leave her room. Yeah, I would. I don't know if I would. I mean, that's pretty frightening. And plus, these homes are, like, they're designed for college students, I think, probably. So there's probably, like, hallways and rooms are separated. It's not like a traditional home where there's like, maybe a big front entrance and it's open. So I imagine it was apartment like, and they were hiding in their room.

[Emily Simpson]

So the two remaining roommates that are alive continued texting back and forth about the man in the hall. There's a lot of typos because you can tell they're panicked, right? They're just like, you know, Bethany says to Dylan, possibly intoxicated and Intoxicated. Right. Stfu. This is after she tells her that she saw a man in a ski mask. Like, he had something over his head, forehead, and little mouth. I'm not kidding. I'm so freaked out. So am I. Then Bethany indicated her phone was about to die, and so she texted, come to my room, which was below. This is on the first floor. And then she texts, run. So the defense claims in court documents that Dylan ultimately. So Dylan is the one that saw the man. Dylan's the one that opens the door, like, three different times. And on the third time when she opens the door, that's when she sees the guy walk by in the ski mask. And.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Emily Simpson]

Then she's the one that text to Bethany on the first floor and says, I saw a man in a ski mask. And she's like, wtf? Then she says, come down to my room. Run. So then Dylan ends up going to Bethany's room, and the two of them stay the night on the first floor together. They launch another round of calls to their roommates at 4:27 without an answer. And we know based on the timeline already that their roommates were dead at this time. They're calling them, texting them, 4:27. Please answer. Dylan texts to the roommates upstairs at 4:32am Prosecutors have indicated that they plan to use the testimony of the two surviving roommates and want to use their text messages to illustrate the timeline of the night. I know that the roommates aren't. We know they're not involved, but I don't understand. I. And I. And I'm trying to give them grace here, but I don't understand how you see a man in your house walk by you in a ski mask.

[Shane]

Well.

[Emily Simpson]

And your roommates are not answering or replying. And you go down to your roommate's room and you stay the night in the room.

[Shane]

I don't think the issue is one ran to the other's room. The issue is Then she fell asleep.

[Emily Simpson]

No, they're. They're up there. There's a whole.

[Shane]

How long did they stay? No, no, the girl. One girl went to the other girl's room.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes. And stayed the night.

[Shane]

Night. Stayed the night. That's what I said. How long were they was. Till the police were notified?

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, the. Stays the whole night. And there's a whole digital background. I mean, on their phones they have it of them. Like they. One gets on LinkedIn and then they're on Snapchat and then they're on Instagram and then they're back on Snapchat.

[Shane]

Provides a lot of questions like what. What the heck? Then they went. They resumed to normal behaviors. They just go back to their regular, you know, Instagram and whatever.

[Emily Simpson]

I don't know. That's the part where I'm confused. And then one of them, I don't remember which one wakes up in the morning at 7am and calls their mom or calls their dad and then calls their dad back. And then the dad calls. Here's my question. And this is another thing that will come out at trial, I assume, because we don't know this, but what was the conversation when she called her home? She does. She has a conversation with her dad at like 7 or 8 in the morning after a. A sun. After a Saturday night, out drinking someone. They see a masked man in the house. Their roommates aren't answering. Then she has a phone conversation with her dad. What was, what was in that conversation? Because they end up not calling 911 until someone else comes over to the house at noon.

[Shane]

Okay, so clearly they didn't go into the victim's rooms.

[Emily Simpson]

No. Or. Yeah. Or yell up for them.

[Shane]

Well, they, I mean, they're all in the same house. They tried to call them and no one, no one answered.

[Emily Simpson]

Right, but I'm saying they're all in the same house. It's three levels. I don't know. Why don't they open the door and.

[Shane]

Be like, hey, maybe they just all kind of had their own space and they just didn't. They thought, okay, they're sleeping with some guy with a mask. I don't know. I don't know how. What the dynamic is. Is that normal behavior for them? I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

Is it normal behavior to see someone in a mask, ski mask, walking around in your house?

[Shane]

No. No.

[Emily Simpson]

All right, well, we know that the defense is clearly going to point out that while they're not being able to get a hold of their roommates and that they saw a masked man intruder in their house that they, they don't call.

[Shane]

Like they're gonna have discredit. Clearly. Maybe this didn't happen because if people saw a masked man in the home, they would call the police. They Instead went on LinkedIn and went to bed.

[Emily Simpson]

So clearly Snapchat and Instagram.

[Shane]

Yeah. Is, is their testimony credible? Right, but there's more evidence.

[Emily Simpson]

There's a lot more evidence. And I'm not questioning their honesty as to like they were just questioning their response. Questioning. I just, I don't understand in what world you see an intruder in your home when you're a college student, you can't get a hold of your roommates, you're scared and you don't call the police.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

That's the part that I don't understand. But then again, I don't know. I've never been in a situation where that happens. So maybe there is some kind of fight or flight thing that goes on and you are in shock. I don't know. A transcript of The Surviving Roommates 911 Call was also released and the transcript shows the chaos.

[Shane]

What time was the 911 call?

[Emily Simpson]

It was at 11:56am oh my gosh.

[Shane]

Like at noon the next day?

[Emily Simpson]

Yes, that's what I just keep saying. Yes. It was eight. It was eight hours after the murders took place that 911 was finally called.

[Shane]

What time did they wake up? 11:55.

[Emily Simpson]

No, I just told you. One of them was awake at 7. I believe it was 7am and she was making phone calls to her dad.

[Shane]

She just stayed awake for four hours before she called. Four or five hours.

[Emily Simpson]

They might have fallen asleep in there a little bit. Yeah, for an hour or so.

[Shane]

I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

That's why I'm saying the trial will be very interesting because I feel like a lot of these questions and these.

[Shane]

Gaps are going to be witnesses.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes, they're going to be witnesses. And it will be really interesting to hear these gaps filled in. What was the conversation about? What was your mental state during that time? Why did you not.

[Shane]

They're going to 911 earlier holes in that. But there's still DNA evidence.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes.

[Shane]

And there's his car roaming around.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

His cellular usage.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. All right, let's get to how Brian was actually caught. So the DNA evidence in this case is really interesting to me. So they found a knife sheath that was left behind. And again, the knife sheath is interesting to me because Brian allegedly shows up, he murders four people, he's a criminal, he has. He's working on his PhD in criminology. So we're not talking about someone that's.

[Shane]

I'm gonna talk about a low level, inexperienced, uneducated murderer.

[Emily Simpson]

You're talking about someone whose crime and crime scene is their passion. And I don't know how you show up to a murder. You have. You have a knife. That's it. You have a ski mask and a knife. And how you leave the knife sheath behind when that's all you're carrying. It's not like you have a purse and a wallet and a backpack and a bunch of stuff that you're handling well. I mean, maybe he did.

[Shane]

He's also committing four murders.

[Emily Simpson]

That's a lot.

[Shane]

Yeah. It's kind of hard to maybe manage your. Yeah. Multitask.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. You know, so the knife, she. On this K Bar knife, which I. I actually looked up an image of it. It's a big knife.

[Shane]

Yeah, it's like a Rambo knife.

[Emily Simpson]

It is. It's. It's the knife sheath itself. Says USMC on it.

[Shane]

I had that knife in this house. Like, let's say I just bought one and I had it.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

You would quickly identify as, what the heck is this knife? Where did you get it? Why do we have. What do you need it for? It's not like it would just get mixed with all our other kitchen knives, right? No, but, I mean, it's. It's not. It. It's not to say there's not a reason to have the knife. It's not like, oh, if you have the knife, you're a murderer. But it's not a typical knife to have. And so you better have an explanation.

[Emily Simpson]

For it for why you have it.

[Shane]

Yeah. If I had the knife in the home and you asked about it, he's like, oh, I don't know. I just thought it was kind of cool. It was on sale. Like, it doesn't make sense. You would be like, what's the reason for this knife?

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

And I could say collecting, hunting, but I'd have to have a reason. It's not just. You never know. I just got a knife. So what's his reasoning? Because there's history. He bought that. He bought that same knife, too. Do you know that?

[Emily Simpson]

Yes, and I was going to get to that, but that is more of the evidence that they have against him. They did find through his digital footprint, he purchased the knife with the sheath and the knife sharpener.

[Shane]

Oh, were they separate items?

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, on Amazon. And I believe he. I believe they were purchased eight months prior to the murder.

[Shane]

Yes. That sounds about right. But I know that the Amazon account is a family account, and so there's issues with expectation of privacy from the others. And it's also, well, who bought the knife? But that's the thing. He needs to have an explanation for that knife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he does.

[Emily Simpson]

You mean as to why.

[Shane]

If he wants to explain his reason, like if I'm at the scene of a crime, about the times of the murder, but I didn't commit the murder. Well, I'm. I'm gonna have an explanation as to why I was there. He has an explanation as to why. Oh, and the. What's the knife cover called?

[Emily Simpson]

A sheath.

[Shane]

A sheath.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So the sheath. Does he have the sheath or does he only have the knife? Knife. Or neither. So if he. An explanation here. An explanation for why he bought the knife. Yes, an explanation as to. If he. If he doesn't have the knife because he like to throw it out. Right. He's hiding it. It's evidence.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

And the sheath.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay. But we're gonna get more into this knife because there's new evidence that has come out recently.

[Shane]

Okay, well, tell me.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay. That he. This is why the defense is trying to suppress his Amazon, his digital footprint, his Amazon purchase, because apparently after the murders, he was looking for a replacement knife because the knife was never found.

[Shane]

Well, we. Someone on the Amazon account was looking for the knife. Oh. So the. The thinking is, oh, my gosh, I better have a new knife to kind of explain that. See, look, there's no blood on here. There's no anything. This is. And I have the sheath, you know, and everything.

[Emily Simpson]

So the sheath is found in the bed, and the sheath has some DNA on it. On the, on the button part of the sheath. The knife has never been found. I've. I've read, I've heard. I've thought. I've. I've heard people say that possibly he got rid of the murder weapon and that drive between going, yeah, probably because I guess you pass a river, it's called Snake river or something, that he could have thrown it into the river. Now, there's new evidence that's come forward that the defense is obviously trying to suppress, but it's that he, after the murders, was looking at that same K bar knife.

[Shane]

Knife. Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

So if the knife is missing and the sheath was found, is he trying to purchase the knife again to say, hey, I do have it. It's right here. I didn't use it in a murder. I have it. It's in my house.

[Shane]

So that's what he was trying to do.

[Emily Simpson]

So there's that.

[Shane]

That's why I said you have to have an explanation for the knife or the missing knife Mary is trying to buy. But did he buy it? No, it was a search history, I think.

[Emily Simpson]

I believe it was a search history and I don't know, I couldn't tell if. If they could tell from this digital footprint if it was purchased or they can only tell that he was looking at it in order. Well, I mean.

[Shane]

Well, I think an argument could be speculation.

[Emily Simpson]

We're speculating.

[Shane]

And an argument could be made someone in the household was looking at it. Maybe because he took their knife and someone else.

[Emily Simpson]

Or maybe because the dad's reading about.

[Shane]

My knife is missing. I'm gonna get a new one. Son, did you. You borrowed my knife, did you? I need you to put it back. Yeah, right. Wow.

[Emily Simpson]

All right.

[Shane]

So this is way too, you know, this is where I get it beyond a reasonable doubt. But there's so many coincidences where it's like, this is not normal. You're purchasing the same knife and yours is missing and you're driving around these girls homes. I mean, it's just so not. I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, he's innocent until proven guilty, but let's just keep going because there is DNA that's found on the knife sheath. The DNA in this, in this case is really interesting to me because they ran the DNA into the national FBI database, which is codis, and they get no hits.

[Shane]

Yeah, because he's never had a crime before.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

To be in the system.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So it says first investigator submitted the DNA to the FBI database, codis. But when that didn't turn up a match, investigators turned to genetic genealogy. It actually has a name which is really interesting. It's called IgG. It's investigative genetic genealogy. And I think this is going to be something that's more prevalent because now there's all these DNA databases like 23andMe and these heritage databases. And what they did was they took the DNA and because they got no hits in codis, they ran it through.

[Shane]

They found family members.

[Emily Simpson]

They found family members in these genealogy databases. And they got a hit with the dad, I believe. Then I think they followed him because he takes a road trip after the murders are committed. He and his dad take a road trip in December and they drive from Washington where he goes to College in this PhD Criminology program. They drive his white Elantra to Pennsylvania where his family home is. I believe the police followed him or kept track of him. Somehow they knew that he was going to be home in Pennsylvania. And then they go through the trash and they find more DNA and they make a match. So they are using this genealogy type of, of genetic DNA research. They get the dad, there's a hit, they find his family, they follow him to his family home, they go through the trash again. There's no expectation of privacy and trash.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

You put trash out on the side of the road, you're. It's not an illegal search.

[Shane]

I read something. Yeah. Once you put it in the trash, it's fair game.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

But I think I read something that they use the trash service to go collect the trash because it was in an, in a gated community and I guess police didn't have the ability to get in.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh.

[Shane]

Or they just chose to have the garbage, you know, person go and like retrieve it, like, hey, give us that trash over there. And so then the idea is. Yeah. Is there an expectation of privacy or something? You know, I think that's gonna fall flat.

[Emily Simpson]

But yeah, you know, I do know the defense filed a motion to suppress or, or to throw out the evidence with a genealogy. And that's also going to be another issue. I know they've hired, they've brought someone off to the defense team, which is a, an expert in the DNA and the genealogy and all that, because they're going to try and definitely use that to tear apart.

[Shane]

But to do what? I mean, DNA is DNA. So what's the argument to be made?

[Emily Simpson]

I, you know, because they're going to, they're, they're going to try and say that they, you know, didn't do the right things, they didn't test it enough. Was there tainted in the testing? I don't know.

[Shane]

You know, but it was. The DNA on the knife cover was trace evidence or trace DNA, meaning he just put his thumbprint and just left some DNA.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

It wasn't blood, so you can't, it's not very easy to transfer trace DNA from one source to another without any other DNA also being put on there.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So that's, I think that's going to fall flat, too. I think they're going to try to poke all these holes, but I don't think anyone's going to buy it.

[Emily Simpson]

I do believe that in these preliminary motions, they, they tried to, they, they filed a motion to suppress the genealogy part of it, the DNA, because they were saying it was unconstitutional. But the question is, is when you give your DNA to these databases.

[Shane]

Yeah. Is it public or is it public? Is there Is, does that expectation of privacy remain when I submit my saliva for a DNA test?

[Emily Simpson]

Right. And I believe what the judge said is when you're. When you're giving your DNA to a third party, there's no expectation of privacy. Privacy.

[Shane]

No. You're in a freaking database.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. All right. Investigators then built a family tree of hundreds of relatives using the same tools and methods used by members of the public who wish to learn more about their ancestors. So this is how. So the FBI investigators then sent local law enforcement a tip to investigate Coburger after law enforcement obtained the DNA from Coburger's father. And later they got a cheek swab from Coburger, which I assume they got a warrant at that point. At that point to get the cheap. The cheek swab from him directly.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

I assume they submitted an affidavit with all of these things. As far as the DNA on the sheath, the genealogy, it hit on the dad. They got the, you know, the DNA from the trash. It all matched. And now they got a cheek swab from Co Burger, and they found that there was a statistical match showing it was overwhelmingly likely that the DNA found on the knife sheath match Co Burgers. So that's where the DNA came to play. We talked about this a little bit, but let's just make this. Let's just go into a little more detail about his purchases prior to the murders. The state has revealed new evidence. It plans to present a trial that includes a purchase record from Dick's Sporting Goods that prosecutors say shows that Coburger bought the black. And I didn't know what this was. I never heard of this before, but I guess this ski mask he had on is called Balaclava.

[Shane]

It has an opening for the eyes. It doesn't have, like, two circles.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So I actually Googled that because I never heard of it before, and it showed up on Revolve. So Revolve, which I order from 8, 000 times a day, carries.

[Shane]

So they. They sell a murder kit.

[Emily Simpson]

They sell murder kits on Revolve. But anyway.

[Shane]

And they have a good return policy.

[Emily Simpson]

They have an amazing return policy. So he could have worn it.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Returned it that night, put it back in the box. Box. Put the shipping label on and sent the mask back.

[Shane]

And I think one of the. The surviving roommates, she drew what kind of mask he wore.

[Emily Simpson]

She did.

[Shane]

And it matched that type exactly.

[Emily Simpson]

It's that open, just the. Like you said, the one.

[Shane]

It's like a ninja. You look like a ninja.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So the same type of mask was Described by a surviving roommate. And she also, like you just said in a police sketch, she claimed she saw a man wearing a black ski mask inside the King Road Home the night of the killings. She also said that she could tell that he had bushy eyebrows.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Which that comes into play later because apparently he took a selfie the morning after the murders.

[Shane]

And does he not have bushy eyebrows?

[Emily Simpson]

He does.

[Shane]

Oh, he does. Right. Okay. He shaved him or something?

[Emily Simpson]

No, no. So this a selfie that he took the morning after the murders. I believe it was like they found it in his phone.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

You know, evidence that apparently took it around 10am or something like that. He's like, freshly showered, you know, just. Just committed the perfect murder. I'm gonna take a selfie as a thumbs up.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

He has like, there's like a shower head in the background, but literally there.

[Shane]

Was a shower head.

[Emily Simpson]

Literally.

[Shane]

He jumped out of the shower and.

[Emily Simpson]

Said, okay, yeah, so he takes a shower, he cleans off all the evidence, apparently. Allegedly. And then he takes his selfie around 10am I believe was the time frame. This is after the murders. He's clean, he's got his bushy eyebrows, and he's got a thumbs up. So I know the prosecution wants to enter this selfie into evidence to show, to corroborate that she said the man she saw had bushy eyebrows. And here we have a selfie of.

[Shane]

Close in time to the close in.

[Emily Simpson]

Time with the bushy eyebrows. So in addition, investigators found a K bar military knife sheath, which we knew. And though the knife itself is still missing, which we think possibly he got rid of it, maybe in the river. Prosecutors say Coburger bought a K bar knife eight months before the killings. So we have the DNA evidence and we also have the car activity. So state prosecutors presented a map detailing what they say are the times and locations. Coburger's vehicle was picked up on surveillance video near the crime scene. After reviewing several videos obtained from the area near the crime scene, authorities saw the suspect's vehicle, later determined to be a 2015 white Hyundai Elantra, multiple times between 3:29am and 4:20am on the day of the attack. So like we said earlier, there's ring footage of this car and they live on this house. The murder house is on a dead end. So you're.

[Shane]

So you're not. Definitely not driving by.

[Emily Simpson]

Right? So you're, it's not like you're just driving by. You're. You're going past, you're turning. I think they have video Surveillance of him doing a three point turn and then there's surveillance of him at like 4:25am or something leaving quickly in this car. Investigators found out that Coburger had registered the 2015 white Elantra in Washington on November 18, five days after the killings. So this is interesting because I was thinking, did he purposefully not register his vehicle in Washington? Because in Washington then you have to have a plate on the front and the back of the car. His car was registered in Pennsylvania, where he's from, and he had no front license plate. So do you think that he, I mean he's a criminology major, he's getting a PhD. So I thought he was thinking he was outsmarting police by not having a front license plate and not registering his car in Washington.

[Shane]

Yeah, but you're, you're making the connection. He didn't register so you wouldn't have to put a plate on. Is that what you're saying? Well then he was a criminal. He would just not put a plate on. Like all of a sudden he's like, oh, I gotta follow the local, state and highway rules.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, what's the, what's his reasoning for waiting five days after the murders to then register his car in Washington?

[Shane]

I, I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

I'm just saying if you are meticulously planning a murder and you buy the murder weapon eight months before and you, and you purchase the ski mask and you've gone by and there, there is, I don't know if I already said this, but there they picked up on his cell phone where he had driven by this residence 12 times prior night.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

So he's canvassing this house.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

And every time they picked him, he pinged, you know, near their house on his phone. It was at night time.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Or early morning. So it's not like he's driving by because he's, I don't know, less likely.

[Shane]

That he had business being on that street right in the middle of the night.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So my point is if this man is meticulously planning a murder, he is a criminology.

[Shane]

Well, yeah, but he still makes mistakes. He left the knife cover.

[Emily Simpson]

I, I know he, he made like the most basic one. He left the murder weapon behind.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Or not the weapon, but the sheath. He left it behind. I don't know, I was just thinking that the, the license plate and registering the car was probably some thought that he had, that he was evading police in some type of manner. Anyway, that's just me. But again, when he goes.

[Shane]

Yeah, but you also thought Washington and Idaho were far apart.

[Emily Simpson]

I. I did. I thought. I thought. I thought Idaho was like. Like I thought Idaho was in the southern United States. Like, I thought Idaho was down by Utah. Isn't.

[Shane]

Well, it touches Utah also, but I.

[Emily Simpson]

Thought it was below Utah. I didn't realize it was.

[Shane]

Wow. Up above. No.

[Emily Simpson]

All right.

[Shane]

Way off. That's why I drive everywhere.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay.

[Shane]

That's why when you're like, I'll be home in 10 minutes and it's like 30, 40 minutes later because I don't.

[Emily Simpson]

Know where I am.

[Shane]

Yeah, exactly. And then you're like, I need gas again. I'm like, already?

[Emily Simpson]

I just drive a lot of stuff.

[Shane]

Yes, you do.

[Emily Simpson]

Also, I read that this is interesting. You'll find this interesting. Are you listening?

[Shane]

Yep.

[Emily Simpson]

Are you paying attention? I am in Idaho, where he's being tried. The state requires that if you're going to use an alibi defense, that you have to provide evidence. Well, you have to file that prior to the trial so that you can't do a surprise alibi. You have to file. Yeah. So basically, defense has filed an alibi that he was driving around the night of the murders because he likes to look at the stars. So basically what they've done is take the evidence that the prosecution has and then you formulate. You turn it around and formulate an alibi around that. And it's. It's. Their alibi is he was alone in his car driving around. But he does that a lot because he likes to just drive around.

[Shane]

This was in November. I wonder if it was like, overcast and stuff, because that would be easy. Be like, really? There's no stars. It was overcast that night.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, no, he drove. I mean, he drove by their house 12 times between June and November.

[Shane]

Oh, so he's. This dead end. Has a really good showing of the stars.

[Emily Simpson]

I love to drive down this dead end.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

And look at the stars and the hiking trails. On November 13, the suspect's phone was near his home in Pullman, Washington. That's where he's in the. The PhD program at 2:47am but did not appear on a network again until approximately 4:48am when it was detected near Blaine, which is south of Moscow, Idaho, where the murders took place. Basically, what he has done, you can tell, is he shut his phone off between 2:47am and 4:48 because there's no cell phone data.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

So.

[Shane]

Which is more suspicious?

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So I'm saying again, he's trying to elude police by turning it's like when.

[Shane]

The criminal wants to elude police, and all of a sudden they got their car, like, completely detailed. Right. You know, and it's like, right. The guy will be like, yeah, he's my neighbor. I've never seen him wash his car in 10 years. And all of a sudden he got a detail service. Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

All right. Or when there's a murder on the carpet and they rip the carpet out, get new carpet. I just. I just need a new carpet throughout the entire house. So anyway, what he's done is he has all this cell phone data. Right. It's pinging, pinging. And then between the time frame of the murders, there's no cell phone. Turns his phone off.

[Shane]

I know it. And it's. It's like when people burn a house down to hide a murder.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

It actually creates more evidence because you can see that it was like an arson and it started over here. And like. And then it's like, oh, they use this gas can, then they can find out where the gas can was bought.

[Emily Simpson]

I always like it when people burn a house down to cover up a murder. But then they find the body in the house and it has, like, a bullet hole in the body. And you're like.

[Shane]

And it just. And it creates more evidence for them to find something, someone. Because now there's an arson case.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, yeah, they just created.

[Shane]

They create more evidence. So here he is creating more evidence, like turning his phone off, which, you know, kind of lets you know what he was thinking or what he was planning or where it was turned off and where it was turned back on.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. So the lack of phone data during this crucial time period is consistent with Coburger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide. This is what investigators determined. Less than four hours later, between 9:12 and 9:21am, Coburger's phone was detected near the crime scene, again in Idaho, which. Which suggests he returned to the area after allegedly killing the four students. This is my question. Did he go back to the crime scene? Because his. His.

[Shane]

They usually do.

[Emily Simpson]

But why did he. Why did he not turn his cell phone off then? If he's turned his cell phone off the night of the murders, so there's no cell phone data, but then he goes back the next morning. Why did he not turn his cell phone off again? He's. He.

[Shane]

He could have simply forgot. He could also thought, the crime's already done. So they're not going to look at my data after. I don't know. Who knows?

[Emily Simpson]

Do you think he Went back to look for the knife sheath. I mean, what's he gonna do, Go in the house in the morning?

[Shane]

Excuse me.

[Emily Simpson]

Excuse me. I left something.

[Shane]

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

There's also.

[Shane]

Do you think he's gonna. I'm changing subject. Do you think he's gonna testify? You think this is the kind of guy that's like.

[Emily Simpson]

No, no, I'm telling you, he won't testify because. Well, first of all, I've learned that he's on the spectrum and that's. That's a defense that they. That the defense is going to use for the death.

[Shane]

A weak defense. You know why? Well, no, because he's a PhD mate. He's pursuing a PhD and he' like I'm not all there.

[Emily Simpson]

No, I don't think they're going to use autism as. As a defense. They're going to use autism as if he's convicted, that they can't give him the death penalty because it's cruel and unusual. Unusual punishment with somewhat to.

[Shane]

Yeah, well, killing four people and a house is cool and unusual.

[Emily Simpson]

I get it. But I. If he's autistic, and I do believe that I've read that he suffers with depression and that he wrote something about not having emotions, not being able to show emotions.

[Shane]

How can you be depressed if you don't have emotions?

[Emily Simpson]

Well, you can be depressed and sad. He had a heroin addiction. I mean, he's got all kinds.

[Shane]

He had a heroin addiction?

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, he had a heroin addiction because apparently he was depressed, so he did heroin. And I. I did read somewhere that he wrote something online about not having feelings and emotions. I'm just saying someone like that, with that kind of intense stare with no emotions. You can't put someone on the stand like that. They're gonna come off callous and cold and he's got bushy eyebrows like you're. You're not. You can't put someone on the stand and.

[Shane]

And it's not gonna be favorable is what you're saying.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, I'm trying to say it in a way. Yeah. Thank you for saying.

[Shane]

But. But he might want to.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, but the defense team at the end. Well, I mean, I guess at the end, it is up to him. Yeah, I. I don't think he will. I think that they would talk him out of it and say, no way.

[Shane]

Right, right.

[Emily Simpson]

I do know because I've watched every episode of Forensic Files that when a lot of times murderers go back to the crime scene immediately because they like to, they like to see their work.

[Shane]

Yeah. You didn't have to watch Frank's files to know that.

[Emily Simpson]

Why?

[Shane]

That's a known thing. They always return to the scene of the crime.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. And I know a lot of times when police are investigating, they do a sweep.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Of, of the scene.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

Because a lot of times the, the.

[Shane]

Murderer find who's suspicious, who's acting odd and stuff and they can look or.

[Emily Simpson]

Who they see repeatedly in the background or talking or being around anyway.

[Shane]

Especially if someone like him is talking to the. Was he talk. Oh, wasn't he like talking to the police when he got arrested too? And he was all like, casual and saying, we should go out to coffee and he was asking him questions about their careers and stuff. It's like, dude, you were just arrested for murder and you're just like, curious to know about their careers and you want to go have coffee with them to talk about things.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, apparently he had applied to like the Pullman. That's the city he lived in, in Washington. Like he had applied to their police department. Like he wanted to do some kind of research or something or help them in crime scenes or something. So maybe he was just casually asking them about their job.

[Shane]

No, but that's what you would be doing if you're arrested for murder and you didn't commit it, then you're just casually making small talk with the police.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay, well, if you were arrested for murder and you're in the back of the car and you did not do it, what would you be talking about?

[Shane]

I wouldn't be saying anything.

[Emily Simpson]

No, no, I, I don't. That you be cracking jokes. You'd be like, I didn't push her off the cliff. She annoys me. But I didn't do that.

[Shane]

She's always taking selfies.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, back to Brian Coburger. So this is another piece of evidence that I know that the prosecution wants to enter. Coburger wrote in 2020 while he was a student at Desales University in Pennsylvania. This is where he got his undergrad degree and criminology that they wanted to introduce. This paper he wrote that shows the defendant's knowledge of crime scenes. First of all, he's a criminology major. Of course he wrote papers about crime scenes. Well, yeah, the 12 page paper entitled.

[Shane]

It'S not like he was a theater major and he wrote a, wrote a script about killing four, you know, college students in Idaho.

[Emily Simpson]

I mean, of course he wrote about.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

Crime scenes. He's getting a PhD in criminology. I mean, that's part of the scope of his education. But the 12 page paper entitled Crime Scene Scenario final used an example of a killing in which a knife was apparent, apparently used. The paper discusses the many steps authorities should take to secure and investigate a crime scene and details the equipment used for crime scene investigation, how to collect evidence and how to enter a crime scene to avoid contamination, including wearing gloves and other protective equipment. He clearly missed the part about leaving behind evidence though. I feel like he, he should have focused more on taking your crime scene weapons home right afterwards.

[Shane]

Right.

[Emily Simpson]

Anything that is fiber free because you don't want to leave fibers and covers the mouth, hair and overall body will be helpful in avoiding crime scene contamination. Basically because you don't want to leave DNA behind. Right. So I guess they want to submit this paper as evidence that he's aware of how to not contaminate a crime scene. But also, it is interesting, and we.

[Shane]

Didn'T talk about this yet because there wasn't much contamination.

[Emily Simpson]

There wasn't.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

And, and they did confiscate his car and they did the whole thorough checkup. Nothing. They found nothing. There was no DNA from the, from any of the kids. There was no blood. There was no, there's nothing. So I don't know if he did some incredible thorough cleaning of the car.

[Shane]

Or, or he wore like a whole suit or something.

[Emily Simpson]

He was just completely covered so that there was no.

[Shane]

Because that means there was no transferring like a fibers from their house to his car.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. And he, he killed four people with a knife. There's blood everywhere.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

How did he not get any blood transferred from these killings in this house to the car. To the car?

[Shane]

I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

You tell me that.

[Shane]

I don't know. He. I can only picture he had some to like full blown, like, you know, you know Beekeeper's outfit on.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, like.

[Shane]

And then he tossed the Departed.

[Emily Simpson]

Where?

[Shane]

Oh yeah, at the end.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, it's Wahlberg. Right. Where he walks into that apartment at the end and he's just covered from.

[Shane]

Head to toe with a gun in his hand.

[Emily Simpson]

Right?

[Shane]

Yeah. And then Matt Damon's character, he's like, oh man. Like, I know what this is going.

[Emily Simpson]

But the only thing is she saw him and he had the mask on. But I don't think she said, she said he was dressed in black. It's also dark. It's also 4:20 in the morning.

[Shane]

So imagine she just saw his eyes and then slammed the door or whatever. I don't imagine she like, you know, looked him up and down.

[Emily Simpson]

I don't know. All I. I just can't get past the fact that he stabbed four students and ended up not tracking blood anywhere and not having blood in his car.

[Shane]

I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

Let's talk about what the motive would be. Life. It's unclear if Brian Coburger had a motive or knew the victims beforehand. We did talk about how possibly he knew them from going to this restaurant. However, Kaylee gone Calvis's parents, Steve and Christie, believe they have proof of a connection. In the minutes after learning Co Burger's name, Christy, the mom, says, we went online and immediately started Googling. They say they discovered digital evidence that showed a tie between Coburger and two of the victims. In an interview with 48 Hours, the Goncalves family provided screenshots of an Instagram account they believe belonged to Coburger. Those screenshots include what they say is Coburger's Instagram profile and a list of people he was following, including Maddie Mogan and Kaylee Goncalves. 48 hours has not been able to confirm the authenticity of this. Of this Instagram account. However, Christy Gone Calves, who is the mother, says when they attempted to cross reference the accounts of Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna and Ethan, it appeared that Coburger, that this Coburger account had interacted with Maddie's Instagram. You would go to Maddie's Instagram account and look at her pictures, and he liked them. Christie said. So he was actively looking at the Instagram account. That's something else that I think is interesting that'll come more up at trial was whether this was his Instagram account. If they can link it to him in some way to authenticate it. And if so, then he clearly had some kind of obsession. I would say, yeah, that he found her online, he's met her at the restaurant. She was cute and blonde. He finds her Instagram, he's liking her photos, he's sending her a dm. He probably followed her home from work one day, found out where she lived.

[Shane]

Not like he went out on three dates and she dumped him and said, I want to see you. And then he got obsessed and killed her. Yeah, it's like he never even, like, interacted with. He never went on a date with her, and he wants to kill her. Like you're obsessed where you just want to follow him and then kill him.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Weird. I mean, it's. It's evil either way, but it's just weird.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, I mean, he's a serial killer.

[Shane]

So, I mean, serial Killer?

[Emily Simpson]

He's not a serial killer. He killed four people. How's that not a serial killer?

[Shane]

Serial killer. You have to keep repeating the crime over and over.

[Emily Simpson]

So you're saying because he killed four people, well then every.

[Shane]

Every burglar would be a serial burglar because they took more. One thing in the house.

[Emily Simpson]

Oh, yeah. I never thought of it that way.

[Shane]

Yeah, start thinking like I do and.

[Emily Simpson]

You'Ll get a lot farther. Well, you know what? He might have killed again, though. But he messed up so many times that he was caught.

[Shane]

Maybe so.

[Emily Simpson]

And maybe he went into criminology because he's obsessed with crimes and he wanted to commit the perfect crime.

[Shane]

Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

[Emily Simpson]

And so. And then he saw her.

[Shane]

I mean, I guess people do go into their career to perfect. Like, to pursue their career to perfect. Yeah. Like, if I'm gonna go to culinary art school, it's because I want to, like, bake the best pie, right?

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So maybe he did.

[Emily Simpson]

I can't even picture you baking a pie. I would pay money to watch you bake a pie. I could picture you.

[Shane]

You eating a pie.

[Emily Simpson]

Okay.

[Shane]

Thank you for that Key lime pie. You know you like them.

[Emily Simpson]

I love pie. Yeah, Key lime pie is my favorite. All right, the. The parents that we were talking about, this is Kaylee's parents say the account that they found, this Instagram account of Brian Coburger is no longer active. It disappeared shortly after his arrest. What did he do? Like, how do you. Do you have access after you're arrested? Do you have access to get on Instagram and deactivate your account?

[Shane]

He might do activated it before, I don't know, like, as he got arrested.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, he got arrested.

[Shane]

They're like, you have one phone call.

[Emily Simpson]

He's like, he has to call Instagram.

[Shane]

Yeah, he just logged on his Instagram. Deactivate my account.

[Emily Simpson]

So let's talk about some of the defense. What's the defense going to say? First of all, without even going through this rundown? I'll tell you, the defense is going to use reasonable doubt, because every defense uses reasonable doubt. I know that.

[Shane]

Sorry.

[Emily Simpson]

No, but I was. You didn't. Let me explain. Explain. Of course they're going to use reasonable doubt, but I'll tell you they're going to use reasonable doubt because there was also blood found on a handrail that they did not test. And there was a glove with blood found outside of the house a couple days after the murder, and they did not test it.

[Shane]

Why would they not test that?

[Emily Simpson]

I don't know. I Am dumbfounded by that.

[Shane]

They're like, oh, this little button on this knife cover we're gonna test. Yeah, but the bloody knife, we don't need to look into that.

[Emily Simpson]

Not a bloody knife.

[Shane]

It was a bloody glove.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shane]

In a stairway or stairwell or whatever.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. I've read that these two other. And also there was DNA found under Maddie's fingernails that come from that did not match Coburger. So there was like her DNA, an unknown DNA and then another unknown DNA, something like that. There's like a three part mixture. And that wasn't tested. I believe that wasn't. Well, no, it was because it was unknown. I don't know. But there's the bloody glove and then the blood in the hallway. They did not test. And for some reason I did read in some of these affidavit that they said that it was ineligible to be tested in codis and I couldn't figure out why it was ineligible. I don't know if the sample was too small or there was some contamination, I don't know.

[Shane]

But I wonder if they didn't want to test it. Maybe. Or maybe they tested it and didn't come up as the same. So they just.

[Emily Simpson]

So you're saying they just said it wasn't tested?

[Shane]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Emily Simpson]

I thought maybe. And I don't know, this is just me, this is me speculating that maybe they didn't want to test it because then if it comes up to someone else then they have to investigate that person it takes away from Coburger. Then it's too convoluted and they have.

[Shane]

Their defense will probably. Defense will probably come up with the. You, you didn't look into anything else you had.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

Thousands of blinders only looked at my guy.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

Because you had one little thing on him and then that. Then you directed all the evidence towards him.

[Emily Simpson]

And we know that happens. We know that happens in a lot of cases where you, you find a suspect and then they, the police just hardcore go after that suspect to the exclusion of anyone else that could possibly be involved.

[Shane]

Defense is going to be like once you don't look at the DNA evidence on the knife cover and once you overlook the. My client gazing at the stars 12 times.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

And once you overlook the DMS and once you overlook the fact that he bought a knife knife eight months prior and kept searching after the crime and he bought this scheme asset Dicks. Once you overlook that, you will see that my client is innocent.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

And I urge you to look at the facts that make my client isn't all right.

[Emily Simpson]

In other news in this case, which I thought was interesting, they actually did demolish the house. And I, I told you this the other day and you said that that's pretty normal.

[Shane]

Well, I don't know. It's normal. I think that's probably not far fetched.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

When there's like a mass murder, I mean, how are you going to rent that out to other college students?

[Emily Simpson]

Well, I think there's sickos that would like to rent it.

[Shane]

There would be. And then you'd have to disclose it.

[Emily Simpson]

Right.

[Shane]

When you sell it.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, I think also maybe they had to demolish it because all these crime scene junkies would there people probably be driving by it all the time, like you. I would love. Yeah, I mean I went to the Menendez house, I would drive by, I'll take a road trip.

[Shane]

That's probably another reason. So it's really just a clean slate.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. The off campus house was demolished on December 28, 2023. Despite mixed feelings from the victims families, university officials said they decided to tear down the house during winter break to try to decrease further impact on the students who live in that area.

[Shane]

The school owned it.

[Emily Simpson]

Kaylee Gone Calves's family was firmly against knocking down the house, saying doing so would destroy one of the most crucial pieces of evidence in the case before a trial date was even set.

[Shane]

Oh, well, I was, I was just assuming they collected all the evidence and they got the green light to it.

[Emily Simpson]

Well, they did, because I, I did read that both sides, prosecution and defense, both agreed that they could tear the house down because they felt as if they had everything they needed. I do understand the family's thinking that, I don't know, maybe there's something more that someone. Well, I guessed and now they can never recover it.

[Shane]

It's better to. I guess if I was the parent of the victim, I'd be like, well, I'd rather preserve it, just in case. You never know. Right. I guess now they don't have the option.

[Emily Simpson]

Exactly. So the two surviving roommates is Bethany Funk and Dylan Mortensen have largely remained silent since the killings. That's because there is a gag order on this case. They're not allowed to.

[Shane]

Well, yeah. What are they gonna do? Go on podcast and.

[Emily Simpson]

No, they. Well, they clearly can't talk about it. They also had to move this case. They moved the venue, they moved it out of whatever this area is. It's going to be in Boise, which is. I'm not sure exactly how far away? But I read that it doesn't really even make that much of a difference because I think they did a poll as how many people have heard about the case and knew about it.

[Shane]

Everyone knows about. Especially in Idaho.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah. It wasn't. I'm moving it to Boise. Didn't make that big of a difference. So jury selection is going to be challenging as well because I don't know how you're going to find a jury that hasn't already.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Emily Simpson]

Had some kind of preconceived notion that.

[Shane]

Brian, especially with us doing this podcast. Everyone in Idaho listens to us.

[Emily Simpson]

They do. And now they're going to. They're going to know what we know and what we think we know.

[Shane]

Right. We've clearly cracked the case.

[Emily Simpson]

We've cracked the case. We don't care about the other DNA out there.

[Shane]

Yeah. It was. It was. It's the driving around Burger that's a vegan.

[Emily Simpson]

Yes, it's him. He's a vegan. He has bushy eyebrows and his name is Burger. Yes. And he drives around at night 12 gazing at stars at the stars on a dead end street.

[Shane]

I'm a criminal. I'm a criminology major with a, A, a minor in astrology.

[Emily Simpson]

Exactly.

[Shane]

Or astronomy, I guess.

[Emily Simpson]

So. The two girls wrote letters to their lost friends which were read aloud by a pastor during a Dec. 22 service for Kernodle. The two girls got matching tattoos to memorialize their four friends with initials of the victim's names on their arms along with angel wings. Many people blame Mortenson for waiting to call 911 until the next day since she saw Coburger in the house. I mean, I don't know if it would have made any difference. I don't think any of them, like, were alive for long. Do you know what I mean? Like, like if she called 911 when she saw someone in the house, would that have made a difference? They have survived.

[Shane]

I think probably. Possibly not. But I think it goes back to earlier in our conversation, which is. That's probably normal response to call the police right away.

[Emily Simpson]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Instead of checking your LinkedIn account.

[Emily Simpson]

I mean, it is a normal response, but then again, I've never been in that situation, so I'm trying not to judge, but I judge. I can't get past not being able to get a hold of your roommates, hearing weird noises and seeing a mask man in your house. And you don't call 911 until the next day when a friend comes over. And I think the friend came over and actually went to check on the roommates and found them dead. And that's why they finally called 91 1. I'm. I'm confused. That's why I'm looking forward to the trial, because I feel like a lot of timeline, there'll be a better timeline and better details, and they're clearly going to testify and they're going to talk about what they talked about with their parents and what they were doing on social media and what their mind was during that time period. So to me, that's really interesting. Many. Some even suspect that Mortensen and Funk, that's Bethany and Dylan, were involved in the murder. That's a lot of people online. You know, those online sleuths like to. To learn. Learn all this stuff and then speculate that maybe the roommates were involved and that's why they didn't call 91 1. I personally, from reading everything that I've read and going through everything, I don't think that's the case. I think they just made bad decisions and I think maybe they were overly intoxicated and maybe.

[Shane]

I don't think that changed.

[Emily Simpson]

Maybe she questioned what she saw and thought I'll sound stupid if I'm wrong or something.

[Shane]

I don't think it sounds. I don't think it changes really, any of the necessary facts to determine whether he was guilty or not.

[Emily Simpson]

Right. Well, do you have any other questions? Because we have come to the end of the Brian Coburger case and the Idaho murder. Again, I'm very interested in the trial and hopefully we'll follow along.

[Shane]

Well, I have a question. Is he in custody?

[Emily Simpson]

Yes.

[Shane]

Okay. No bail?

[Emily Simpson]

No, I don't think so. So, anyway, the trial will be interesting. A lot more details will come out. Obviously, the roommates will testify. The family members. I know family members are expected to testify as well. Even Brian's family members.

[Shane]

Yeah. Well, yeah, because. To explain the Amazon accounts thing.

[Emily Simpson]

Right, because.

[Shane]

Did you purchase a knife? Okay. Did you purchase a knife? Okay, then it leaves him as the only one that purchases.

[Emily Simpson]

All right. Thanks for listening to Legally Brunette. We appreciate it. And if you haven't listened to all our episodes, you can go back and listen to them. And thanks again. We appreciate it.

[Shane]

Thank you.

[Emily Simpson]

My daughter Sophia and I are loving coffee, mate. Cold foam. It adds a little fun to our cup. You can add the cold foam to literally any drink. I'm waiting to add it to my espresso martinis.

[Shane]

It also is the perfect podcast. Pick me up.

[Emily Simpson]

And right now they're giving y'all a $3 coupon. Visit CoffeeMate.com ColdFoammyDrink to grab yours, but act fast. There's only a limited supply.

[Shane]

I'm literally doing this right now.

[Emily Simpson]

Coffee, mate, a little foam, a lot of fun.