Latest / NO FILTER / The Brutal Murder That Stunned Investigators _ True Crime Documentary(M4A_128K)

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The Brutal Murder That Stunned Investigators _ True Crime Documentary(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:13
Speaker 1: It starts like most nights in a college town, lights
0:15
Speaker 1: turning off one by one, group chats slowing down, friends
0:19
Speaker 1: saying good night without thinking much of it. In Moscow, Idaho,
0:24
Speaker 1: November twenty twenty two felt no different. A small house
0:27
Speaker 1: just off campus sat quietly at eleven twenty two King Road,
0:31
Speaker 1: a place where laughter had echoed only hours earlier, where
0:34
Speaker 1: friends had cooked dinner, shared stories, and made plans for
0:38
Speaker 1: the future. Nothing about it suggested that by morning that
0:42
Speaker 1: four lives would be gone. And what makes this case
0:45
Speaker 1: linger in people's minds isn't just what happened inside that house.
0:48
Speaker 1: It's how ordinary everything seemed right before it did. Because
0:53
Speaker 1: sometimes the most unsettling cases don't begin with chaos, They
0:57
Speaker 1: begin with silence. The house at eleven twenty two King
1:01
Speaker 1: Road was shared by students from the University of Idaho,
1:04
Speaker 1: young adults balancing classes, friendships, late nights, and the steady
1:09
Speaker 1: uncertainty of what comes after graduation. Inside that home lived
1:13
Speaker 1: Kayley Gonkoff's, Madison Mogan, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. Four students,
1:20
Speaker 1: four lives moving through the same space, connected by friendship,
1:24
Speaker 1: proximity and the rhythm of college life that makes shared
1:27
Speaker 1: houses feel like temporary families. But sometime in the early
1:30
Speaker 1: morning hours of that Sunday, while most of Moscow slept,
1:34
Speaker 1: something happened inside that house that would stop all of
1:37
Speaker 1: those lives at once. Hours passed before anyone outside realized
1:41
Speaker 1: anything was wrong, no immediate emergency calls. It wasn't until
1:46
Speaker 1: later that morning, when concern finally overcame uncertainty, that police
1:50
Speaker 1: were called to the residence for a welfare check. What
1:53
Speaker 1: officers discovered inside would transform a quiet college town into
1:58
Speaker 1: the center of a national investigation. Four students had been killed.
2:03
Speaker 1: In the hours that followed, official statements remained carefully measured,
2:07
Speaker 1: and as officers moved room to room trying to reconstruct
2:11
Speaker 1: what had happened in the dark, what they found at
2:13
Speaker 1: the entrance of that house would raise more questions than answers,
2:18
Speaker 1: and it would be the beginning of everything that followed.
2:22
Speaker 1: To understand what was lost on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two,
2:26
Speaker 1: you have to first understand who was there. Kaylee Jade
2:29
Speaker 1: Gonkalvs was born in Rathdrum, Idaho, and grew up the
2:32
Speaker 1: middle child in a family of six siblings. Her father
2:36
Speaker 1: Steve Gonkalvaz remembered her as a force from the very beginning.
2:40
Speaker 1: She had a ton of spirit. She was so fun
2:43
Speaker 1: She was like a little princess, and she wanted to
2:45
Speaker 1: do all the fancy stuff. A true girl, he said.
2:48
Speaker 1: Her older sister, Alivia Gonkalvaz, described Kaylee as the family's
2:52
Speaker 1: self appointed defender and protector, the ultimate middle child, the
2:56
Speaker 1: fairness fighter. Kaylee didn't hold back on love or on life.
3:01
Speaker 1: She loved country music and concerts. She organized gingerbread house
3:05
Speaker 1: competitions at Christmas and pushed everyone to be present for
3:09
Speaker 1: the small moments because she understood instinctively that those moments mattered.
3:16
Speaker 1: By the time she reached twenty one, Kaylee was a
3:18
Speaker 1: senior at the University of Idaho majoring in general studies,
3:22
Speaker 1: a member of the Alpha Phi sorority, and weeks away
3:25
Speaker 1: from graduating a full semester early. She had already accepted
3:29
Speaker 1: a job offer at a marketing firm in Austin, Texas,
3:32
Speaker 1: where she was planning to start a new chapter. But
3:35
Speaker 1: Kaylee was in many ways inseparable from one person, in particular,
3:39
Speaker 1: her best friend, her partner in everything, Madison Mogan. Madison
3:45
Speaker 1: Lee Mogan grew up in Courdeline, Idaho. She and Kaylee
3:48
Speaker 1: had known each other since the sixth grade middle school,
3:52
Speaker 1: before either of them had any idea who they would become.
3:55
Speaker 1: Mogan and Gonkov's both grew up in Cordeline, Idaho, and
3:58
Speaker 1: had been best friends since childhood. By the time they
4:01
Speaker 1: reached Lake City High School together, their bond had grown
4:05
Speaker 1: into something their teachers would still be talking about years later.
4:09
Speaker 1: The two of them had made a plan back in
4:11
Speaker 1: high school. They would go to the University of Idaho together,
4:15
Speaker 1: rush sororities and build a life in the same place,
4:18
Speaker 1: and they did exactly that. Mogan, age twenty one, was
4:22
Speaker 1: a senior majoring in marketing and a member of the
4:24
Speaker 1: Pi Beta Phi sorority. She had plans to move to
4:28
Speaker 1: Boise after graduation, a simple, ordinary plan for a young
4:32
Speaker 1: woman with a whole ordinary future ahead of her. One
4:35
Speaker 1: floor below Cayley and Madison lived Xana Kernadle. Xana Sky
4:39
Speaker 1: Kernadle was an a Vondale, Arizona native and a junior
4:43
Speaker 1: at the University of Idaho majoring in marketing and a
4:46
Speaker 1: member of the Pie Beta Phi sorority. She was the
4:49
Speaker 1: kind of young woman who decorated her high school graduation
4:52
Speaker 1: cap with flowers and butterfly cutouts and the words for
4:55
Speaker 1: the lives that I Will change. Her older sister, jef
5:00
Speaker 1: Asmin Cernaudel described her in plain, clear terms. You rarely
5:03
Speaker 1: get to meet someone like Xana. She was so positive, funny,
5:07
Speaker 1: and was loved by everyone who met her, Jasmine said
5:10
Speaker 1: in a statement. By the fall of twenty twenty two,
5:13
Speaker 1: Xana was in a relationship she was clearly happy in.
5:16
Speaker 1: She had been friends with Ethan Chapin before they started
5:19
Speaker 1: dating that spring, and by summer she was spending time
5:22
Speaker 1: with his entire family. His mother, Stacy Chapin, noticed the
5:26
Speaker 1: shift during parents' weekend at the university. She could tell
5:29
Speaker 1: things were serious. Ethan Chapin was from Conway, Washington. He
5:35
Speaker 1: was twenty years old, a freshman majoring in Recreation, Sport
5:39
Speaker 1: and Tourism management and a member of the Sigma Chai fraternity.
5:43
Speaker 1: He stood six foot four and rarely took things too seriously.
5:47
Speaker 1: Not in a careless way, but in the way of
5:49
Speaker 1: someone who has figured out early that life is better
5:52
Speaker 1: when you're laughing. Ethan Chapin was one of a set
5:55
Speaker 1: of triplets who enrolled at the University of Idaho together.
5:59
Speaker 1: His brother Hunter and sister Mazie had been at his
6:02
Speaker 1: side for every school year, every milestone, every ordinary day
6:06
Speaker 1: of their lives. His mother, Stacy Chapin, called Ethan the
6:10
Speaker 1: glue of the three. Ethan lit up every room he
6:13
Speaker 1: walked into and was a kind, loyal, loving son, brother, cousin,
6:17
Speaker 1: and friend. Ethan was a lifelong athlete who had played
6:21
Speaker 1: basketball and tennis at Mount Vernon High School. He loved
6:24
Speaker 1: country music and the NFL. He texted his sister Mazie
6:28
Speaker 1: on the evening of November twelfth to come hang out
6:30
Speaker 1: with them. I think, he said, dog, come hang out.
6:33
Speaker 1: We all want you here. Mazie recalled, I said, I'm
6:36
Speaker 1: going to bed. On the first weekend of November twenty
6:40
Speaker 1: twenty two, just one week before the murders, all five
6:43
Speaker 1: Chapins had been together at the University of Idaho for
6:46
Speaker 1: Parents' Weekend. Jim and Stacy drove away that Sunday feeling
6:50
Speaker 1: something they hadn't felt in a long time. Certainty their
6:54
Speaker 1: kids were okay, they had done it. It was just
6:57
Speaker 1: an amazing weekend. By the fall of twenty twenty two,
7:01
Speaker 1: all four of them were exactly where they were supposed
7:03
Speaker 1: to be young, safe, surrounded by friends. The weekend of
7:08
Speaker 1: November twelfth was a normal one for the students of
7:11
Speaker 1: the University of Idaho. Classes were winding down toward the
7:15
Speaker 1: end of the semester. There were parties, dinners, plans made,
7:19
Speaker 1: and casually kept. On the evening of November twelfth, Ethan
7:23
Speaker 1: Chapin joined his sister Maisie at her sorority formal. Afterward,
7:28
Speaker 1: he met up with Xana Kernadel at his Sigma Chi
7:30
Speaker 1: fraternity house. Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernadel attended a Sigma
7:35
Speaker 1: Chai party between eight and nine pm and were home
7:38
Speaker 1: at one forty five am. Meanwhile, Kaylee Gonkalf's and Madison
7:43
Speaker 1: Mogan were at the Corner Club between ten pm and
7:45
Speaker 1: one thirty am, and then headed to a food truck.
7:48
Speaker 1: At one forty am, a driver took them home, and
7:52
Speaker 1: investigators later confirmed that driver had no involvement in what followed.
7:57
Speaker 1: By two am, all four of them were inside the
7:59
Speaker 1: house on King Road. At four a m. Kernadle received
8:03
Speaker 1: a door dash order. According to prosecutors, it was one
8:06
Speaker 1: of the last time stamps investigators would be able to
8:08
Speaker 1: trace to her Kaylee's dog, Murphy, a small, lively animal
8:13
Speaker 1: she shared custody of with her ex boyfriend, was also
8:17
Speaker 1: in the house that night. Up on the third floor,
8:19
Speaker 1: two other roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funkie, were also home.
8:24
Speaker 1: Both had gone out earlier that night and returned. Both
8:27
Speaker 1: were asleep or trying to sleep as the clock moved
8:30
Speaker 1: past four am. The house on King Road was three stories.
8:33
Speaker 1: On the third floor were the bedrooms of Kaylee and Madison.
8:38
Speaker 1: That night, Kayley and Madison were sleeping in Mogan's room.
8:42
Speaker 1: The second floor had the kitchen and the bedrooms of
8:44
Speaker 1: Xana Kernadel and surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen. Kernawdle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin,
8:50
Speaker 1: was staying in her room. The first floor had the
8:53
Speaker 1: bedroom of another surviving roommate, Bethany Funky. At some point
8:58
Speaker 1: just after four am, someone entered the house through the
9:01
Speaker 1: sliding glass door in the kitchen. At two am, the
9:05
Speaker 1: house on King Road finally grew quiet, lights off, doors, locked,
9:10
Speaker 1: phones charging beside beds, and somewhere outside that house someone
9:14
Speaker 1: was still awake. Prosecutors would later reconstruct what happened inside
9:19
Speaker 1: one eleven twenty two King Road in the minutes after
9:22
Speaker 1: four am on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two. The account
9:26
Speaker 1: was built from physical evidence, forensic analysis, surveillance footage from
9:30
Speaker 1: nearby cameras, and the testimony of the one person who
9:34
Speaker 1: witnessed any of it directly. Just after four am, Coburger
9:38
Speaker 1: entered the house through the kitchen sliding door, went to
9:41
Speaker 1: the third floor, and fatally stabbed Mogan and Goncalve's. According
9:45
Speaker 1: to prosecutor Bill Thompson, at about four seventeen am, a
9:50
Speaker 1: security camera less than fifty feet from Kernaudel's room picked
9:54
Speaker 1: up sounds of Gonkalva's barking dog and distorted audio of
9:57
Speaker 1: what sounded like voices or a whimper follow by a
10:00
Speaker 1: loud thud. Dylan Mortenson, asleep in her second floor bedroom,
10:04
Speaker 1: was stirred awake by the sounds. She heard who she
10:08
Speaker 1: believed to be Kaylee running down the stairs, and then
10:11
Speaker 1: heard Murphy, who didn't usually bark, barking. She opened her door,
10:16
Speaker 1: she heard what she believed was crying coming from Xana's room.
10:19
Speaker 1: Then she heard a male voice she had never heard
10:22
Speaker 1: before say clearly, it's okay, I'm going to help you.
10:26
Speaker 1: Mortensen said the male voice was not Ethan Chapin. She
10:30
Speaker 1: believed the man was in the second floor hallway, possibly
10:33
Speaker 1: near the bathroom. She closed her door, then she opened
10:36
Speaker 1: it a third time. Standing in the hallway, moving toward
10:40
Speaker 1: her was a figure dressed entirely in black, a mask
10:43
Speaker 1: covering the lower half of his face. Mortensen described the
10:47
Speaker 1: suspect as not being muscular, but being skinny and toned
10:50
Speaker 1: like a basketball player. She described him as at least
10:54
Speaker 1: five foot ten, with bushy eyebrows visible above the mask.
10:58
Speaker 1: She said he appeared to be carrying something she could
11:01
Speaker 1: not immediately identify. The man walked past her and exited
11:05
Speaker 1: through a sliding glass door in the kitchen. Mortensen stated
11:09
Speaker 1: she stood in a frozen shock phase and then locked
11:12
Speaker 1: herself in her room. She did not call nine one one.
11:15
Speaker 1: At four twenty two am, Mortensen texted Bethany Funky, no
11:19
Speaker 1: one is answering. I'm early confused DERN. At four thirty
11:22
Speaker 1: two am, she texted Gonkalfs plus answer. At ten twenty
11:27
Speaker 1: three am, she tried again ru up Kayley never answered.
11:31
Speaker 1: At eleven fifty eight am, a nine to one to
11:33
Speaker 1: one call was placed after Kernadel was found unresponsive. A
11:37
Speaker 1: friend of the roommates, who had been contacted and told
11:39
Speaker 1: something was wrong, had entered the house and found her.
11:43
Speaker 1: Officers from the Moscow Police Department arrived within minutes. Cernadle
11:47
Speaker 1: and Chapin were discovered in her second floor bedroom, with
11:50
Speaker 1: Cernadle lying on the floor and Chapin in bed. Mogan
11:54
Speaker 1: and Gonkalvs were found in the single bed in Mogan's
11:57
Speaker 1: room on the third floor. Murphy the was found unharmed
12:01
Speaker 1: on the third floor. All four were pronounced dead at
12:04
Speaker 1: the home that afternoon. By sunrise, four students were dead,
12:09
Speaker 1: but the real terror for Moscow, Idaho was that nobody
12:12
Speaker 1: knew who had done it or whether they were still nearby.
12:16
Speaker 1: Its chief James Fry, would later acknowledge that nothing in
12:20
Speaker 1: the department's history had prepared them for this. He described
12:24
Speaker 1: it as a very complex case. The university sent a
12:28
Speaker 1: text alert to its more than eleven thousand enrolled students
12:31
Speaker 1: four people had been found dead near campus. The message
12:35
Speaker 1: urged students to stay away from the area and shelter
12:37
Speaker 1: in place. It did not say who Kaylee's friends were
12:42
Speaker 1: standing outside when the alerts began arriving. One of them.
12:45
Speaker 1: Ava Wood recalled reading the message and feeling dreads settle in.
12:49
Speaker 1: It didn't say how many, it didn't say who. Where's
12:52
Speaker 1: Kaylee and Maddie. Before anyone could get an answer, a
12:55
Speaker 1: second alert confirmed four bodies. Ethan Shapin's triplet brother, Hunter
13:00
Speaker 1: was shaken awake at his fraternity house by a friend
13:03
Speaker 1: who told him police were across the street on King Road.
13:07
Speaker 1: Hunter said he wasn't worried at first. Ethan was six
13:11
Speaker 1: foot four and two hundred and twenty pounds. Whatever was happening,
13:14
Speaker 1: Ethan would be fine. That's what you tell yourself. Stacy
13:18
Speaker 1: Chapin was in a grocery store in Washington State when
13:20
Speaker 1: her son Hunter finally called. He just said, Ethan's not here,
13:25
Speaker 1: That's what he said. And I'm like, well, go get him,
13:28
Speaker 1: and he just kept repeating it. No, you don't understand
13:31
Speaker 1: what I'm telling you. Mom. They're not here. Ethan and
13:35
Speaker 1: Xana are not here. And I'm like, well, go and
13:38
Speaker 1: get them. Finally the words came through. She left her
13:42
Speaker 1: the store, she got in her car, she drove. The
13:45
Speaker 1: Moscow Police Department held its first press conference on November sixteenth,
13:49
Speaker 1: three days after the murders. Chief James Frye, confirmed that
13:53
Speaker 1: an edged weapon such as a knife, had been used
13:55
Speaker 1: in the killings. He said the attack appeared to be targeted.
13:59
Speaker 1: He said department had no suspect and no murder weapon.
14:03
Speaker 1: Investigators looked extensively at information received about Kaylee Gonkov's having
14:08
Speaker 1: a stalker, but were not able to verify or identify one.
14:12
Speaker 1: To that date, investigators had collected one hundred and thirteen
14:16
Speaker 1: pieces of physical evidence and sent it to the Idaho
14:19
Speaker 1: State Police Crime Lab for weeks. The investigation appeared to stall.
14:24
Speaker 1: The killings initially mystified law enforcement and shook the small
14:28
Speaker 1: town of Moscow. A candlelight vigil was held on November thirtieth.
14:32
Speaker 1: Crowds of grieving students and family members gathered on the
14:35
Speaker 1: UI Administration building lawn. Then, on December seventh, six weeks
14:41
Speaker 1: after the murders, the Moscow Police Department made a specific
14:45
Speaker 1: public appeal. Police announced they were interested in speaking with
14:49
Speaker 1: the driver of a white twenty eleven to twenty thirteen
14:52
Speaker 1: Hyundai Elantra. Authorities reviewed surveillance video and saw the white
14:57
Speaker 1: Hyundai Elantra go by the victim's house US three times
15:01
Speaker 1: before entering the area. For a fourth time. At four
15:03
Speaker 1: o four a m. The car's movements were traced back
15:06
Speaker 1: toward Pullman, Washington, just across the state line, eight miles away.
15:12
Speaker 1: For weeks, investigators searched through thousands of tips, interviews, and
15:16
Speaker 1: surveillance recordings, then suddenly buried among all of it, one
15:20
Speaker 1: trail began leading somewhere very specific, eight miles away. Brian
15:26
Speaker 1: Christopher Coburger was born on November twenty first, nineteen ninety four.
15:30
Speaker 1: After graduating from Pleasant Valley High School in Broadheadsville, Pennsylvania
15:34
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, he attended Monroe Career and Technical Institute
15:38
Speaker 1: in Bartonsville, but dropped out a year later. In twenty fifteen,
15:42
Speaker 1: he began work as a security officer for the Pleasant
15:45
Speaker 1: Valley School District. As a teenager, he was described as quiet,
15:49
Speaker 1: sometimes awkward, and later battled issues with weight and self image.
15:54
Speaker 1: Coberger later attended Northampton Community College, where he earned an
15:58
Speaker 1: associate degree in psychology in twenty eighteen. He then attended
16:02
Speaker 1: to Sales University in Center Valley, earning a bachelor's degree
16:06
Speaker 1: in psychology in twenty twenty and a master's degree in
16:09
Speaker 1: criminal justice in twenty twenty two. In the summer of
16:13
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Coburger moved to Washington to pursue a
16:16
Speaker 1: PhD at Washington State University in Pullman, whose campus is
16:20
Speaker 1: less than eight miles west of Moscow. He became a
16:23
Speaker 1: teaching assistant. He began his first semester in the criminology
16:27
Speaker 1: doctoral program, and he arrived quietly in a community that
16:31
Speaker 1: had no reason to know his name. Investigators later determined
16:35
Speaker 1: that Coburger's phone was near the murder victim's residence at
16:39
Speaker 1: least twelve times between June twenty twenty two and the
16:43
Speaker 1: date of the murders. His Internet records revealed searches for
16:47
Speaker 1: combat knives, and investigators believe he purchased a military style
16:51
Speaker 1: cubar knife consistent with the weapon used in the attacks.
16:56
Speaker 1: Inside Mogan's bedroom, next to the bodies of Madison and Kayley,
17:00
Speaker 1: officers had found a knife sheath on the bed. It
17:03
Speaker 1: was a k Bar brand sheath. On that sheath was
17:06
Speaker 1: a tiny amount of male DNA. The DNA did not
17:09
Speaker 1: match anyone in the FBI database, so investigators turned to
17:12
Speaker 1: a different approach. Investigators at the FBI utilized ancestral genealogical
17:17
Speaker 1: websites geed match and my Heritage, which identified a match
17:21
Speaker 1: with two hundred and fifty shared centa morgans of DNA,
17:24
Speaker 1: indicating a much closer relative. That relative was in the
17:28
Speaker 1: Coburger family line. Before the arrest, investigators monitored Coburger outside
17:32
Speaker 1: his parents' Pennsylvania home in Monroe County. He was seen
17:36
Speaker 1: multiple times wearing surgical gloves and placing trash bags inside
17:39
Speaker 1: a neighbor's garbage can. The items were sent to the
17:42
Speaker 1: Idaho State Lab for testing. The DNA from those discarded
17:46
Speaker 1: items matched the DNA on the knife sheath. The case
17:50
Speaker 1: was made forty seven days after the murders, the silence
17:54
Speaker 1: finally broke. A name emerged. On the morning of December thirtieth,
17:59
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, two forty seven days after the murders,
18:03
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania State Police arrested Brian Christopher Coburger at his parents' home.
18:08
Speaker 1: A white Hyundai Lantra was at the parents' house. The
18:11
Speaker 1: car linked to King Road. He was charged with four
18:15
Speaker 1: counts of first degree murder and one count of felony burglary.
18:19
Speaker 1: He was booked into the Monroe County Correctional Facility. He
18:23
Speaker 1: was twenty eight years old. And had completed his first
18:25
Speaker 1: semester of his PhD program just nine days before his arrest.
18:30
Speaker 1: When Brian Coberger was arrested, he repeatedly probed investigators, asking
18:35
Speaker 1: why he was in custody and what they wanted to
18:37
Speaker 1: know from him. His attorney described him as very aware
18:41
Speaker 1: but calm. The Coburger family, in a statement conveyed through
18:44
Speaker 1: their attorney, said the arrest was shocking and out of
18:48
Speaker 1: character for their son. The news hit Moscow like a wave.
18:51
Speaker 1: Families who had spent forty seven days in uncertainty and
18:54
Speaker 1: anguish finally had a name. Steve Gonkov said, I feel relieved.
19:00
Speaker 1: We knew there was evidence, but all that can mean
19:03
Speaker 1: nothing until you have a face and a person to
19:05
Speaker 1: put it towards. Coburger was extradited to Idaho, where he
19:09
Speaker 1: faced four counts of first degree murder and one count
19:12
Speaker 1: of felony burglary. Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty. The
19:17
Speaker 1: legal proceedings that followed were long and heavily sealed. Coburger's
19:21
Speaker 1: defense team filed an alibi claim, asserting that cell tower
19:25
Speaker 1: data would show he was miles from Moscow at the
19:28
Speaker 1: time of the murders. That he simply liked taking late
19:31
Speaker 1: night drives along the Washington Idaho border. A trial was scheduled,
19:35
Speaker 1: then delayed. The families waited. The University of Idaho awarded
19:40
Speaker 1: posthumous degrees to all four victims at its Spring Commencement
19:44
Speaker 1: ceremonies on May thirteenth, twenty twenty three. For years, the
19:48
Speaker 1: case moved through sealed hearings, motions, delays, and speculation. Then,
19:53
Speaker 1: on a July morning in twenty twenty five, the man
19:57
Speaker 1: accused of entering WE eleven twenty two King Road Final
20:00
Speaker 1: only spoke for himself. On July second, twenty twenty five,
20:04
Speaker 1: Brian Coeberger appeared in court and entered guilty pleas to
20:07
Speaker 1: all charges against him. The plea was part of an
20:10
Speaker 1: agreement with prosecutors. In exchange for admitting guilt, the death
20:14
Speaker 1: penalty was removed from consideration. When Judge Hipler questioned Coburger
20:19
Speaker 1: whether he killed each victim willingly, unlawfully, deliberately, and with
20:24
Speaker 1: premeditation and malice of her thought, he replied with a
20:27
Speaker 1: firm yes for each. The families of Klee g and
20:31
Speaker 1: Kolf's and Zona Chernaudel publicly objected to the plea deal
20:35
Speaker 1: feeling that justice required the death penalty be pursued. The
20:39
Speaker 1: reaction among the Chapin family was more complicated. I'm ready
20:42
Speaker 1: for my kids to move on. I'm ready for us
20:45
Speaker 1: to move on. I mean, it's been almost two and
20:47
Speaker 1: a half years, and it's just it's over. Jim Chapin said.
20:52
Speaker 1: The guilty plea ended the uncertainty, but for the families,
20:56
Speaker 1: the hardest part was still ahead, because now they would
20:59
Speaker 1: have to stand in the same courtroom as the man
21:01
Speaker 1: who took everything from them. The sentencing hearing was held
21:04
Speaker 1: on July twenty third, twenty twenty five, at the Ada
21:07
Speaker 1: County Courthouse in Boise. The families of all four victims
21:11
Speaker 1: were given the opportunity to speak directly to Brian Coberger.
21:15
Speaker 1: Coburger sat at the defense table throughout the proceedings and
21:18
Speaker 1: said nothing. Stacy Chapin described seeing him in person for
21:22
Speaker 1: the first time as like an automated phone message, cold
21:26
Speaker 1: and calculated. Aliva Gonkalv's Kaylee's older sister said, my sister
21:32
Speaker 1: Kaylee and her best friend Mattie were not yours to take.
21:35
Speaker 1: They were not yours to study, to stalk or to silence.
21:39
Speaker 1: They are everything that you could never be loved, accepted, accomplished, brave,
21:43
Speaker 1: and powerful, she told him. Kaylee's father, Steve Gonkalf's, spoke
21:48
Speaker 1: about the devastation that had followed the sleepless nights, the
21:52
Speaker 1: altered perception of safety and trust, the loss of peace
21:55
Speaker 1: that could never fully be recovered. When you murdered my daughter,
21:59
Speaker 1: Kaylee js Gonkov's, you didn't just take her life, you
22:02
Speaker 1: shattered others, he said. Xana Cernaudl's aunt, Kim Kernaudle, chose
22:07
Speaker 1: a different path forward. She told Coburger she had forgiven
22:11
Speaker 1: him not for his benefit, but for her own survival.
22:16
Speaker 1: Judge Hipler sentenced Coburger to four fixed life terms to
22:19
Speaker 1: run consecutively without the possibility of parole, as well as
22:23
Speaker 1: a fixed term of ten years for the burglary. He
22:25
Speaker 1: also imposed two hundred and seventy thousand dollars in fines
22:29
Speaker 1: and restitution. Coburger waived his right to appeal or ask
22:32
Speaker 1: for a more lenient sentence. He will never leave prison.
22:36
Speaker 1: The sentencing was over, the cameras would eventually leave, the
22:40
Speaker 1: headlines would fade, But for the people who loved Kaylee, Madison,
22:44
Speaker 1: Xana and Ethan, the story did not end inside that courtroom.
22:49
Speaker 1: No motive was ever formally established. Investigators never publicly explained
22:53
Speaker 1: why Brian Coburger chose those four young people in that
22:56
Speaker 1: house on King Rhoad. Stacy Chapin said she had made
22:59
Speaker 1: her pace with that. I don't believe that we will
23:02
Speaker 1: ever learn that, and I don't need to know. It
23:06
Speaker 1: doesn't change the outcome. It's a horrific event. A memorial
23:10
Speaker 1: garden for the victims on the University of Idaho campus
23:13
Speaker 1: opened in twenty twenty four as the Vandal Healing Garden.
23:17
Speaker 1: Scholarships in the name of Kernadyl, Chapin, and Mogan have
23:20
Speaker 1: been created. The Chapin family's Ethan's Smile Foundation awarded approximately
23:25
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars to thirty three students in its early years.
23:30
Speaker 1: In November twenty twenty five, the Gonkovs family announced plans
23:34
Speaker 1: to sue Washington State University, seeking accountability for Coburger's conduct
23:38
Speaker 1: before the murders in Moscow, Idaho, a town that had
23:42
Speaker 1: gone five years without a murder. The house at eleven
23:45
Speaker 1: twenty two King Road was eventually torn down. What cannot
23:49
Speaker 1: be torn down are the people who lived there. Madison
23:52
Speaker 1: Mogan who walked into a high school classroom at seventeen
23:56
Speaker 1: with her best friend and lit up the room before
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Speaker 1: she'd found her seat. Kayleie Gonkalf's, who organized gingerbread houses
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Speaker 1: every Christmas because she understood you had to make memories
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Speaker 1: on purpose. Xana Kernodle, who wrote on her graduation cap
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Speaker 1: that she was going to change lives and who was
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Speaker 1: already doing exactly that. Ethan chapin The Funny Sunny Glue
24:19
Speaker 1: of His Family, who texted his sister at nine p m.
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Speaker 1: On the last night of his life and said, dog,
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Speaker 1: come hang out. They were not characters. They were not victims. First,
24:30
Speaker 1: they were four young people who went to sleep on
24:32
Speaker 1: a Saturday night after a good day in a house
24:35
Speaker 1: they shared with people they loved. Thank you for watching
24:38
Speaker 1: Murder Ledger. We explore real cases, unanswered questions, and the
24:43
Speaker 1: details that refused to fade. If these stories matter to you,
24:47
Speaker 1: consider subscribing and sharing your thoughts in the comments.