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BONUS: The Megyn Kelly Show: Howard Blum on Bryan Kohberger · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Nancy Grace here. Let me introduce you to
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Speaker 1: a podcast I think you will love, The Megan Kelly Show.
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Speaker 1: The Megan Kelly Show features open, honest, and sometimes provocative,
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Speaker 1: Here's Megan Kelly now.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, live on Serious XM
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Speaker 2: Channel one eleven, every weekday at the East.
0:54
Speaker 3: Hey, everyone on Megan Kelly.
0:55
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show. I'm very excited for
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Speaker 2: what we're about to bring you. It's now been five
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Speaker 2: hundred and ninety days since four University of Idaho students
1:05
Speaker 2: were found savagely murdered. Five hundred and ninety days and
1:08
Speaker 2: still no closure for the families of the young victims.
1:12
Speaker 2: There's not even a trial date set at this point.
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Speaker 2: How can that be? Best Selling author and journalist Howard
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Speaker 2: Bloom has been reporting on this tragedy since day one
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Speaker 2: like no other. I mean, if you read nothing about
1:24
Speaker 2: this case, read anything. Howard Bloom writes, he's been writing
1:28
Speaker 2: for Airmail, which is Graydon Carter's new online publication.
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Speaker 3: It's doing really well, thanks in large part to Howard.
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Speaker 2: You may remember we featured Howard's reporting in our special
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Speaker 2: series on the murders back in December. You can go
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Speaker 2: back and listen to all five parts, episodes six eighty
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Speaker 2: eight through six ninety two. Howard has done more fantastic
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Speaker 2: reporting on this case for a new book just out today.
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Speaker 2: It's called When the Night Comes Falling, A Requiem for
1:54
Speaker 2: the Idaho Student Murders.
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Speaker 3: Again.
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Speaker 2: It's out today. You can get it right now. I've
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Speaker 2: read it, both read it covered and I listened to
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Speaker 2: the audio too, and it's already rising up the Amazon charts.
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Speaker 2: It's going to be number one, zeroed out in my mind,
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Speaker 2: and it'll be on the Time bestseller list too.
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Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show, Howard Bloom. This is a great,
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Speaker 3: great book. I'm so glad you wrote it.
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Speaker 2: Nobody's been reporting like you, so you put it.
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Speaker 4: It's always easy to use it.
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Speaker 2: It's not like it's not a doorstop book, so it's
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Speaker 2: like manageable. You can read this at the beach in
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Speaker 2: a day or two, and I recommend it because you
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Speaker 2: learn a ton about the case. Let's start with the title,
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Speaker 2: what do you mean a Requiem for the Idaho student murders?
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Speaker 3: What was in mind when you were writing that?
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Speaker 5: Well, something that's been lost in the whole coverage of
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Speaker 5: this case and trying to get to the bottom of
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Speaker 5: a perplexing mystery. It's the lives that were lost, these
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Speaker 5: four young kids, four young children. As a father of
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Speaker 5: three children, the art has to go out to them,
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Speaker 5: and I wanted to honor them.
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Speaker 4: I wanted to honor the lives that they lived.
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Speaker 5: Xana Carnudle, one of the young women who was killed
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Speaker 5: at her high school graduation, carried a mortar board with
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Speaker 5: her and it said on the underside, for the lives
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Speaker 5: I will change.
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Speaker 4: For the lives I will change.
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Speaker 5: And as that struck me all the time as I
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Speaker 5: was writing this book. I even had it on a
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Speaker 5: note above my desk. You know, these children will never
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Speaker 5: have the opportunity to have changed these lives, and that
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Speaker 5: affected me and I wanted to try to do their
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Speaker 5: memory justice.
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Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's awful. What do you think about it?
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Speaker 2: I know just the other day they celebrated. I guess
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Speaker 2: a better word is marked Kayla Goansolvus's what would have
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Speaker 2: been her twenty third birthday. I'll show you the tape.
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Speaker 2: There was a balloon release my friends and family of hers.
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Speaker 2: This young girl's been dead now going on two years.
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Speaker 2: She should be celebrating her post college you first career
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Speaker 2: and time with friends. And I was struck by what
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Speaker 2: the family said when they did the balloon release, talking
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Speaker 2: about what they think of when they think of Kayleie
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Speaker 2: Jade Day, which is what they're calling it, which is
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Speaker 2: how she liked to enjoy lunch with a friend or
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Speaker 2: family member. They hope people will do things like this,
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Speaker 2: planning vacations or holidays, trying out a new recipe, treating
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Speaker 2: oneself to mimosas and appetizers at a local restaurant, embarking
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Speaker 2: on a new hiking adventure, witnessing the sunrise, reconnecting with
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Speaker 2: distant friends or family, and spreading kindness at a favorite
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Speaker 2: drive through.
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Speaker 3: That jive's completely howard.
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Speaker 2: With what we know of this young woman, how joyful
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Speaker 2: she appeared in every picture, her tight best friendship with
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Speaker 2: another victim, Mattie Mogan, and just how these girls were
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Speaker 2: so young and had it all in front of them
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Speaker 2: when their lives were taken.
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Speaker 5: And you mentioned the families, how they're trying to come
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Speaker 5: to terms with this, but there really are no survivors
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Speaker 5: in this story. This is a story about victims, and
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Speaker 5: as you pointed out here, production you know, there still
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Speaker 5: is no sense of closure for these families. The trial
5:05
Speaker 5: dregs on and on and on. The delays are cool.
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Speaker 5: It's a cruelty to the families.
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Speaker 3: It's amazing.
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Speaker 2: I don't understand hard to be so into this case
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Speaker 2: and still not even have a trial date. There's going
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Speaker 2: to be hearing on June twenty seventh where they're going
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Speaker 2: to try to get one again. But this defense attorney,
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Speaker 2: whose name is Ann Taylor, has been doing a very
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Speaker 2: good job of convincing the judge whose last name is Judge,
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Speaker 2: so he's judged judge to continue delaying. It's frustrating for
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Speaker 2: those of us who want to see justice take its course.
5:38
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into let's get into the substance
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Speaker 2: of the book. Because you've I mean, will never be
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Speaker 2: able to scratch the surface here because there's a ton
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Speaker 2: of new stuff in here, and just for what it's
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Speaker 2: worth audience, the way Howard writes is absolutely it makes
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Speaker 2: you feel delirious with interest because he just chooses the
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Speaker 2: right adjective and he's very transparent about where he or
6:00
Speaker 2: he's using his own opinion and where he's reporting facts,
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Speaker 2: but has a way of telling the story that is
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Speaker 2: very illuminating. And I think that's one of my thing
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Speaker 2: the favorite things I love about the book. When the
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Speaker 2: Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. One of the
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Speaker 2: big pieces that I learned in this Now I don't
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Speaker 2: know how you got it, and I won't ask how
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Speaker 2: you got it is you tell us about the conversation
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Speaker 2: the suspect who's under arrest, Brian Colberger now for committing
6:30
Speaker 2: these four murders, had with his father, Michael, who had
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Speaker 2: flown from the Poconos, Pennsylvania, all the way across country
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Speaker 2: to Washington State to pick up his son some I
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Speaker 2: don't know a month. It was a month right after
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Speaker 2: the murders. The murders took place November thirteenth, twenty twenty two.
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Speaker 2: The dad flew out there about a month later to
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Speaker 2: get the sun and drive back cross country to the
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Speaker 2: Poconos with his kid, who was a teaching assistant at
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Speaker 2: Wash You and also was getting his PhD in criminology there,
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Speaker 2: and you walk us through their exchange. What was on
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Speaker 2: the dad's mind, what was on the son's mind? Who's
7:07
Speaker 2: now in prison awaiting truck. So talk to us a
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Speaker 2: little bit about that.
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Speaker 4: Well, here's this father who makes this trip.
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Speaker 5: His father is sixty eight years old, and he decides
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Speaker 5: to go out to Washington State to then two days
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Speaker 5: later turn around completely and drive across country with his son.
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Speaker 5: He does this because he's nervous, he's anxious, he is
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Speaker 5: connecting the dots in his mind. He knows his son
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Speaker 5: is a disturbed young man. He knows his son has
7:39
Speaker 5: had problems. He knows his son also lives about ten
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Speaker 5: miles away where four young women four three young women
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Speaker 5: and one young man were killed. And he knows his
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Speaker 5: son look has a white hondaei Alan trip and that
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Speaker 5: just happens to be the car, the model of the
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Speaker 5: car the police are looking for.
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Speaker 4: So he goes out there.
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Speaker 5: I'm not sure what he's going to find, and immediately
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Speaker 5: his son is in a mood and he's seen Brian's
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Speaker 5: moods before, and he knows to sort of go with
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Speaker 5: the flow. He doesn't want to anger him. But as
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Speaker 5: he spends time with Brian, he's very is if he's
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Speaker 5: following footsteps, and these footsteps suddenly become bloody footsteps, and
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Speaker 5: he realizes, oh my gosh, my son might very well
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Speaker 5: be involved in this. And yet he also refuses, refuses
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Speaker 5: to make this leap as any parent might. They can't
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Speaker 5: put this on his son. So in a way, Michael
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Speaker 5: Coburg or the father, is a victim too. He's one
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Speaker 5: of the characters in this story. And I pread my
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Speaker 5: structure of the book in many ways around this trip.
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Speaker 5: It's sort of, you know, like Homer's Odyssey, a long voice,
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Speaker 5: which is going to have a lot of traumatic events.
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Speaker 5: And here, as the fathers is coming, the fears are
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Speaker 5: coming closer and closer into focus in the father's mind.
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Speaker 5: The car is stopped once by a state police actually
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Speaker 5: a sheriff's deputy in Indiana, and then nine minutes later
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Speaker 5: by another deputy, a state trooper, and the father is
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Speaker 5: now realizing, perhaps this is it, Perhaps everything I was
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Speaker 5: thinking about is true, and it becomes clearer and clearer.
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Speaker 5: And then when the car is stopped, what's the first
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Speaker 5: thing that father blurts out to the law enforcement people
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Speaker 5: who are stopping the car. He talks about a shooting
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Speaker 5: in the Washington State University that happened earlier that day.
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Speaker 4: Is what's on his mind.
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Speaker 5: All this violence out in the West is coming together,
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Speaker 5: and he feels something benevolent is happening. He begins to
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Speaker 5: fear as they makes this cross country journal journey, he
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Speaker 5: begins to fear with greater certainty that his son is
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Speaker 5: involved in it, and he doesn't quite know what to do.
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Speaker 2: It's something to consider that the father too, of course,
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Speaker 2: now in retrospect and you think about it, the father
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Speaker 2: too was suspicious of his son. You know, we hear
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Speaker 2: that all these facts, knowing that Brian Colberger was later
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Speaker 2: arrested for these crimes, and then you hear that his
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Speaker 2: father had gotten him at college, was driving him back
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Speaker 2: home the cops, well not the cops, but the FBI.
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Speaker 3: This is one of the points you make in the book.
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Speaker 2: Was already on to him, was aware was following, But
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Speaker 2: of course the father would have suspicions. Of course, the
10:43
Speaker 2: father knew about the quadruple murder right, you know, ten
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Speaker 2: miles from where his son was a TA and getting
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Speaker 2: his PhD. He's got to know the son is weird,
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Speaker 2: to just put it very mildly, he's off, very off socially.
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Speaker 2: And we heard the detail prior to the book about
11:02
Speaker 2: how Brian the son re routed the trip home. They
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Speaker 2: had something all set the shortest distance between two lines
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Speaker 2: is a straight one right and two points is a
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Speaker 2: straight line, and how Brian had changed it suddenly he
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Speaker 2: wanted it to go a much more circuitous route home.
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Speaker 2: But you really lay some details in there about how
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Speaker 2: angry he was about the dad pushing back on that
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Speaker 2: at all, and how the father had to handle him
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Speaker 2: so gingerly he knew he was dealing with the powder
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Speaker 2: keg of a man.
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Speaker 5: It's also interesting that this was not the father his
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Speaker 5: first trip out with his son. He came out when
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Speaker 5: Brian registered at the beginning of the term. He made
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Speaker 5: the cross country trip with him. Now the father is
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Speaker 5: sixty eight years old, the famili has had financial problems,
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Speaker 5: They've been bankrupt twice and went to bankruptcy proceedings, and
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Speaker 5: yet he feels he still has to go with a
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Speaker 5: twenty eight year old young man to be with him
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Speaker 5: on this trip, even when he's registering. He doesn't want
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Speaker 5: his son to be alone at the crossroads. And what
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Speaker 5: does his father do when he's out there? He goes
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Speaker 5: to one of Brian's neighbors and says, you know, my
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Speaker 5: son has a hard time making friends.
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Speaker 4: Can you help him out?
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Speaker 5: And this neighbor invites Brian to a pool party, which
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Speaker 5: I talked about in the book, And that's really Brian's
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Speaker 5: first trip to Moscow, Idaho.
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Speaker 2: The conversation they have relating to and the revelations about
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Speaker 2: Brian Kohlberger's problems in his TA position are absolutely fascinating.
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Speaker 2: So it was far worse for Brian Colberger in the
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Speaker 2: weeks leading up to the murders of these four University
12:47
Speaker 2: of Idaho students on November thirteenth, and also Brian's returned
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Speaker 2: to the Poconos in early December with his dad. Then
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Speaker 2: I knew until I read your book. He tell us
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Speaker 2: about the problems Brian was having in the THA role
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Speaker 2: and about the fact that he revealed a lot of
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Speaker 2: what he did know to the dad.
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Speaker 5: Would you have to begin with I think to understand
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Speaker 5: how traumatic this was for Brian is where he came
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Speaker 5: up from. He was an academic success story. He reinvented
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Speaker 5: his life. He came from being a heroin addict at
13:21
Speaker 5: a junior college, gets into a graduate from Tassau, and
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Speaker 5: then he gets into a first great graduate program at
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Speaker 5: a Washington State university, and he's on his way to
13:34
Speaker 5: be a doctorate.
13:35
Speaker 4: And then in the course of his first term as
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Speaker 4: a teaching.
13:39
Speaker 5: Assistant, the students start to complain they don't like the
13:43
Speaker 5: way he's treating them. They feel he's treating the women
13:47
Speaker 5: in a chauvinistic way. He always has to have the
13:50
Speaker 5: last say he's marking too strictly. And the professor who's
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Speaker 5: handling his course he's working for, Professor John Snyder, pulls
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Speaker 5: in in for a meeting, and what does Brian do.
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Speaker 5: He blows his top. He really doesn't want to discuss it,
14:08
Speaker 5: but he exacerbates matters. And the professor, who was a
14:12
Speaker 5: lawyer before coming to teach at Washington State, starts making
14:18
Speaker 5: a paper trail, sending letters to the administration that we
14:21
Speaker 5: might have a problem here whatever. Finally, on November second,
14:28
Speaker 5: just eleven days before the murders, he's given sort of
14:32
Speaker 5: an ultimatum by the authorities of Washington State. Get your
14:37
Speaker 5: act together or you're going to lose your teaching assistant job. Now,
14:42
Speaker 5: for Brian to lose this, it's not just a job.
14:45
Speaker 5: It's the tuition that allows him to go to graduate school.
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Speaker 5: It's the opportunity to reinvent his life from the hard
14:52
Speaker 5: scrabble life he was leading as a youth in the
14:56
Speaker 5: Poconos to become Professor Brian cober to become a forensic psychologist.
15:02
Speaker 5: And this was a shock. Who is already it's a
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Speaker 5: tentative system. I mean, Brian is always living every day
15:14
Speaker 5: on tenderhooks, and now it becomes even worse. So how
15:18
Speaker 5: he's while he's driving across country with his father, he
15:22
Speaker 5: begins to reveal and this would related to me by
15:26
Speaker 5: people who have spoken with Brian's father to Michael Koberger,
15:30
Speaker 5: that he's in a bit of trouble. So he describes
15:32
Speaker 5: it at the university. But Brian tells his father, I'm
15:36
Speaker 5: going to have the last laugh. You know, they can't
15:39
Speaker 5: just get rid of me. I'm going to be able
15:41
Speaker 5: to have a disciplinary hearing and I will make my
15:45
Speaker 5: case and I will be able to continue teaching, and
15:48
Speaker 5: I believe until the moment he's arrested, he still believes
15:52
Speaker 5: that he's going to get away with things and he's
15:54
Speaker 5: going to be back teaching in the next semester at
15:57
Speaker 5: Washington State University.
15:59
Speaker 4: He believes that he still is.
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Speaker 5: The smartest person in the room and he can out
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Speaker 5: talk these professors because in his heart, he feels he's
16:06
Speaker 5: done nothing wrong.
16:08
Speaker 4: He's always right.
16:10
Speaker 2: He's trying to spin it to his dad as if
16:14
Speaker 2: these are weak need students who just don't like tough grading,
16:19
Speaker 2: and you know, they're they're basically just snowflakes. And I'm
16:23
Speaker 2: a tough grader and that's the problem. And meanwhile, he
16:27
Speaker 2: was it looked like he was harassing a couple of
16:30
Speaker 2: the young female students. He had zero tolerance for conflicting viewpoints.
16:35
Speaker 2: He was disdainful of these students. I mean, all the
16:37
Speaker 2: things that you would expect if this guy really is
16:40
Speaker 2: a quadruple murderer. He wasn't perfectly normal in the classroom.
16:45
Speaker 2: He was odd, to put it mildly, And these students
16:49
Speaker 2: actually spoke up on Moss to the professor Snyder, saying
16:53
Speaker 2: there's something wrong with this guy. And Snyder when he
16:55
Speaker 2: started to kick the tires seems to have found You're right,
16:59
Speaker 2: and that's.
17:00
Speaker 5: Just Brian's behavior did not go unnoticed, and the students
17:05
Speaker 5: that he was teaching picked up on it. There was
17:08
Speaker 5: something really off, something really wrong, and he couldn't hide it.
17:14
Speaker 5: And this is what he was living with. He wanted
17:17
Speaker 5: to be something else, He wanted to fit in. He
17:20
Speaker 5: wanted to he reinvented his life, and he wanted to
17:24
Speaker 5: live this life he once had imagined. But he also
17:27
Speaker 5: was intelligent enough to realize that this was an impossibility.
17:32
Speaker 4: To him, he could not make.
17:33
Speaker 5: This complete leap, and that was the tortured state that
17:37
Speaker 5: he was living in.
17:39
Speaker 2: So most of us, if we were if our tuition
17:42
Speaker 2: were getting paid by this school there at the school
17:45
Speaker 2: liking us. Was the difference between us being able to
17:47
Speaker 2: get the PhD and not because they can can't cut
17:50
Speaker 2: your scholarship at any time. Would shape up if we
17:54
Speaker 2: were sat down by our professor, never mind the department
17:58
Speaker 2: head and said and told shape up, we're going to
18:01
Speaker 2: ship you out.
18:02
Speaker 3: He didn't do that.
18:03
Speaker 2: Professor Snyder called him in, and you write about how
18:06
Speaker 2: the Snyder he was astonished that Colberger started arguing with
18:10
Speaker 2: him as opposed to just saying I'm sorry, I'll do better,
18:13
Speaker 2: I'll resolve. The department head seems to have had a
18:15
Speaker 2: similar experience with him, where instead of being apologetic or
18:18
Speaker 2: falling on his sword, he was irascible. And then ultimately
18:24
Speaker 2: when they reached sort of in a chord, Okay, he's
18:26
Speaker 2: going to try to do better and keep this position.
18:30
Speaker 2: You write about his self sabotage about how he couldn't
18:35
Speaker 2: do it.
18:35
Speaker 5: He was just incapable of it at that point where
18:38
Speaker 5: he thought maybe he's fooled them that he can stay on.
18:42
Speaker 5: He then became more aggressive to some of the women
18:45
Speaker 5: in the class, and at one point one of the
18:48
Speaker 5: young women in his class say related to the college
18:52
Speaker 5: authorities that he followed her to hit her car, and
18:56
Speaker 5: he acted in she said, quote an aggressive unquote matter,
19:01
Speaker 5: And that was just the destrawer that broke the administration back.
19:05
Speaker 5: They said, we've got to get rid of this guy,
19:08
Speaker 5: and they sent him a letter. The problem is when
19:11
Speaker 5: the letter reached his home in Washington State University, he
19:15
Speaker 5: was already on this car trip across America with his father,
19:19
Speaker 5: and he was lecturing his father, or hectoring his father
19:23
Speaker 5: how he was going to ultimately be able to go
19:26
Speaker 5: back because he was smarter than they were, and he
19:28
Speaker 5: would have a hearing, and he would argue his case
19:31
Speaker 5: so successfully that they would have to bow to his
19:34
Speaker 5: superior intelligence.
19:36
Speaker 2: In the midst of all of this, he allegedly committed
19:39
Speaker 2: for murders. That's what's so fascinating about the book and
19:43
Speaker 2: the story in general. Again, the books called When the
19:45
Speaker 2: Night Comes Falling by Howard bloom Blum. He's going through
19:51
Speaker 2: all of this, and you're getting a real profile of
19:54
Speaker 2: who we believe is a killer and what he's going
19:57
Speaker 2: through in his private and personal life. His slow downward
20:01
Speaker 2: spiral in his ta position, his inability to control his
20:04
Speaker 2: anger and defensiveness even to his own peril, like he
20:09
Speaker 2: knows what's going to happen if he continues pissing off
20:12
Speaker 2: his department chair and so on. They've made it very
20:14
Speaker 2: clear he just can't stop himself. As you write, he
20:20
Speaker 2: unleashed the full force of his considerable fury, and that
20:24
Speaker 2: was ultimately with the women and so on. When the
20:27
Speaker 2: department sent him that note, the department chair send him
20:29
Speaker 2: an email, I'm reading from your book here requesting that
20:31
Speaker 2: they meet, you write, this was most likely a summons
20:35
Speaker 2: to the gallows, but before this execution could take place,
20:38
Speaker 2: Brian quite effectively placed the noose around his own neck.
20:41
Speaker 2: Several of his female students reported to the department that
20:44
Speaker 2: Brian was making them feel uncomfortable. In fact, the CREEPYTA
20:47
Speaker 2: had even followed one woman to her car. Now there
20:50
Speaker 2: was nothing further to discuss. Brian's TA job was over.
20:54
Speaker 2: Mister Kolberger, I am writing this letter to formally inform
20:57
Speaker 2: you of the termination of your teaching assistant with the
21:00
Speaker 2: Department of Criminal Justice in Criminology, effective December thirty first,
21:04
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. But this, as you point out, was
21:08
Speaker 2: never received by him. He had already left the campus
21:11
Speaker 2: and was driving back to Pennsylvania. But Howard, by the
21:14
Speaker 2: time she sent this, if the prosecution is correct in
21:18
Speaker 2: this case, he had gone from having troubles in his
21:21
Speaker 2: TA job to murdering four students in cold Blood at
21:25
Speaker 2: the neighboring university, to back in with his superintendent his
21:29
Speaker 2: director on whether he could improve his behavior, and then
21:33
Speaker 2: pieced out of there back to the Poconotes.
21:35
Speaker 5: I mean, you can imagine the chaos that was going
21:37
Speaker 5: on in his internal structure, in his mind and he
21:41
Speaker 5: was always trying to become something better, and yet every
21:46
Speaker 5: time he succumbs to who he is. Even on the
21:50
Speaker 5: nights of the murders, I believe that Coberger was still
21:55
Speaker 5: not stalking the house, but he was trying to find
21:59
Speaker 5: the will to cross over that threshold into making the
22:03
Speaker 5: ideas in his mind become a reality, and he kept
22:06
Speaker 5: on fighting against it. He would go up towards the
22:09
Speaker 5: murder house, and then he would drive off up to
22:11
Speaker 5: the murder house, and then he would drive off.
22:13
Speaker 4: It was a colossal battle of wills.
22:15
Speaker 5: And when he finally turns off the key in his
22:18
Speaker 5: car and parts and makes up his mind, requires his
22:21
Speaker 5: strength of hercules to do this, but he decided at
22:25
Speaker 5: this point to give into the demons, and I believe
22:29
Speaker 5: he grabs the knife, sheaths and parts on the top
22:32
Speaker 5: of the hill above King Road and starts walking down
22:36
Speaker 5: on the pole of cross the ground.
22:39
Speaker 4: And making his way towards the kitchen door back door
22:43
Speaker 4: of the house.
22:44
Speaker 2: So this is a new way of looking at the evidence.
22:48
Speaker 2: I thought this was interesting too. We knew, according to
22:51
Speaker 2: the police, that he had cased the house. That's kind
22:53
Speaker 2: of how we saw it that this white houndai Landro
22:57
Speaker 2: we believe was it still has to be proven, had
22:59
Speaker 2: cased the joint three times or so before the actual
23:02
Speaker 2: moment of the murders, which the cops are putting it.
23:04
Speaker 3: Around four oh two a m.
23:07
Speaker 2: And your theory, having studied this more than any outsider
23:12
Speaker 2: you know outside of law enforcement that I know, is
23:15
Speaker 2: that it wasn't a casing. That this was a man who,
23:20
Speaker 2: other than his heroin addiction, had not led a life
23:24
Speaker 2: of violating the law, and was in PhD studies to
23:29
Speaker 2: you know, work against criminals and try to understand them
23:32
Speaker 2: and help law enforcement figuring out whether he could cross
23:35
Speaker 2: it in a profound and before and after way.
23:39
Speaker 5: If he were actually caseing it, he would have noticed
23:43
Speaker 5: all the cars in the driveway, a house full of people.
23:48
Speaker 5: He might have wondered if there were people who would
23:51
Speaker 5: have a physical confrontation with that he couldn't overcome, And.
23:54
Speaker 4: Also would have noticed the door dash driver coming here.
23:57
Speaker 5: At four am delivering food to Zena and would have
24:01
Speaker 5: known that she was probably still awake. I don't think
24:05
Speaker 5: any of these more reasonable thoughts entered his mind. I
24:09
Speaker 5: think he was an internal dialogue between Brian and his demons,
24:14
Speaker 5: and that one was driving him back and forth that
24:16
Speaker 5: night until he crosses that threshold into complete mania.
24:21
Speaker 2: The other theory that you reveal in here made a
24:23
Speaker 2: lot of headlines is that you believe that this actually
24:27
Speaker 2: was about one victim. This is something we've all wondered,
24:32
Speaker 2: and I apologize to the audience. I should have just
24:33
Speaker 2: offered a few details about the crime at the top
24:35
Speaker 2: of the hour. I just assume familiarity because our viewers
24:38
Speaker 2: have heard us cover this so often. But it was
24:41
Speaker 2: a murder of four young students at the University of Idaho.
24:44
Speaker 2: We believe by this TA slash PhD student at a
24:48
Speaker 2: neighboring university, and the four students were two best friends,
24:53
Speaker 2: Kaylee and Maddie, who are there on the left in
24:55
Speaker 2: the Maddie's up on the shoulders of Kaylee. There in
24:59
Speaker 2: this picture of all the roommates who lived there, Xaner Kernodle,
25:02
Speaker 2: who's over there on Screenwright with her boyfriend Ethan's arm
25:05
Speaker 2: around her.
25:06
Speaker 3: Those two were killed. They were on the second floor.
25:08
Speaker 2: The two blondes, Kayleye and Maddie were up on the
25:11
Speaker 2: third floor in a bed together. They were lifelong best friends.
25:14
Speaker 2: And these two gals on the left and the right
25:17
Speaker 2: were surviving roommates when they were surviving roommates, and the
25:20
Speaker 2: one Dylan who's on the left would be an eyewitness
25:23
Speaker 2: as well. So you believe, just for the viewing audience
25:26
Speaker 2: who's watching this with us on YouTube, that Maddie, who
25:29
Speaker 2: was on the top of that shoal of Kaylee's shoulders,
25:32
Speaker 2: was the target of this attack.
25:35
Speaker 5: Why when Homberger went to the house, he had no idea.
25:40
Speaker 5: I believe that Calle was there. He goes in on
25:44
Speaker 5: the second because Kelly wasn't living in the house really
25:49
Speaker 5: at that point. She was living up north from Courzalene.
25:52
Speaker 5: She was just in for the weekend to show off
25:55
Speaker 5: her new car. He goes in up to the second
25:59
Speaker 5: floor kitchen sliding door.
26:02
Speaker 4: If he was intent on just killing, he.
26:05
Speaker 5: Would have gone into any of the two bedrooms on
26:07
Speaker 5: the second floor, but he is on a deliberate path.
26:10
Speaker 5: He makes his way upward and he goes into Maddie's bedroom,
26:14
Speaker 5: and he then finds that there are two young women there,
26:17
Speaker 5: two young blond, pretty women, and his only target originally
26:22
Speaker 5: was Maddie. Kayley tries to back away, she fights back,
26:28
Speaker 5: and she becomes a grim, gruesome.
26:31
Speaker 4: Way collateral damage.
26:33
Speaker 5: I believe according to the prosecution of the defense, they
26:37
Speaker 5: both have stated categorically in the courtroom that there's no
26:41
Speaker 5: evidence of Coburger having any interaction with any of the victims,
26:46
Speaker 5: either in person or on social media, prior to the killings,
26:51
Speaker 5: and that Coburger, who was a vegan, went to the
26:55
Speaker 5: Mad Greek restaurant, which specialized in vegan food in Moscow
26:59
Speaker 5: and weren't too many plays is to get it, and
27:00
Speaker 5: he met Maddie, who was a waitress there. He didn't
27:03
Speaker 5: even have to speak with her. He was a man
27:05
Speaker 5: who lived by obsessions. Look at his decision to become
27:09
Speaker 5: a heroin autic and to break it to become the
27:12
Speaker 5: best criminologist. He did things with extremes, and he became,
27:18
Speaker 5: for whatever reason, obsessed by her beauty, her luberance, of
27:22
Speaker 5: her vivaciousness, and he focused on her, and I believe
27:26
Speaker 5: he went by the house and sometimes saw her.
27:29
Speaker 4: I believe the house was a party house.
27:33
Speaker 5: We've all seen the videos of the police coming there
27:36
Speaker 5: and the kids interacting with them, and there's something, you know,
27:40
Speaker 5: full of poignancy in those videos, the kids being kids,
27:44
Speaker 5: the cops being brough Town cops, sort of the dynamic,
27:49
Speaker 5: the dialectic of how kids and cops interact on a
27:52
Speaker 5: college campus. But Coburger is outside of this, and it
27:57
Speaker 5: was a constant rebuke. He had done every thing possible, traveled,
28:01
Speaker 5: you know, millions of miles in his own mental vision,
28:05
Speaker 5: from this kid on the periphery of events in high school,
28:10
Speaker 5: becoming a heroinautic to now being a teaching assistant at
28:13
Speaker 5: a celebrated university and a celebrating department at that university,
28:20
Speaker 5: and yet he still couldn't quite get into the thing
28:24
Speaker 5: of the swing up things. He still was an outsider
28:28
Speaker 5: and his outside this was a constant insult to him,
28:33
Speaker 5: and that pushed him, I believe, into what is a
28:39
Speaker 5: can only be described as a mania to want to
28:44
Speaker 5: want to feel that he can't live in this world
28:46
Speaker 5: if these constant redukes to him are going to be
28:49
Speaker 5: living in it.
28:50
Speaker 2: Too, that, I mean, it's a stunning theory, and it
28:54
Speaker 2: actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it,
28:56
Speaker 2: because you're right, Kaylee wasn't even supposed to be there
28:58
Speaker 2: that night, Maddie. He did work at this mad Greek restaurant.
29:02
Speaker 2: Xanna did too, Xanna Kernodle, who was another one of
29:05
Speaker 2: the victims. She was there with her boyfriend, which you know,
29:09
Speaker 2: I mean they's been inseparable, inseparable from what we heard.
29:12
Speaker 2: And he walked past Zanna's bedroom. Did he not howard
29:16
Speaker 2: to get to Maddie's room?
29:19
Speaker 4: He just goes right by.
29:21
Speaker 5: And I also believe that if Ethan and Xanna had
29:26
Speaker 5: not come out, I mean Ethan after after the murders,
29:30
Speaker 5: I hear the noise. Ethan goes out to confront Coburger
29:34
Speaker 5: and before he can even say anything, Coburger slashes out
29:39
Speaker 5: with his knife and gets Ethan across the neck. Ethan
29:43
Speaker 5: is six ' four, an athlete, and he was a
29:47
Speaker 5: wonderful young man, full of vitality, full of vivaciousness, a
29:52
Speaker 5: sort of happy go lucky, uh life of the party person,
29:56
Speaker 5: and Colberger snuffs him out.
29:59
Speaker 4: Then Zena up speaks up.
30:01
Speaker 5: Or starts crying, and Coburger, in one chilling moment, says
30:05
Speaker 5: to her, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,
30:09
Speaker 5: and of course he moves in and kills him. She
30:14
Speaker 5: has a defensive wound on her hand that the knife
30:18
Speaker 5: penetrates her palm.
30:20
Speaker 4: She's trying.
30:21
Speaker 5: It's shoved so strongly, so savagely at her, but she succumbs,
30:27
Speaker 5: and then after killing those two, he walks.
30:32
Speaker 4: Out towards the second floor.
30:34
Speaker 5: He's heading towards the sliding door, trying to leave, and
30:40
Speaker 5: there is Dylan. Dylan sees him, and she can't speak.
30:47
Speaker 5: She's locked in a I believe she describes it, and
30:50
Speaker 5: the police Affidavid, I think, a shock state of fright.
30:54
Speaker 4: But at the same.
30:57
Speaker 5: Exactly, yes, Brian and is locked in his own sort
31:04
Speaker 5: of armory of hate. And if she had spoken up,
31:08
Speaker 5: she might have been, you know, penetrated, this protective barrier
31:12
Speaker 5: that he had wrapped around himself, this narrow focused vision,
31:16
Speaker 5: and I think she would have become a victim too.
31:19
Speaker 5: I think her silence saved her life.
31:23
Speaker 3: Oh wow, And I'm going to get back to the
31:27
Speaker 3: room in a second.
31:27
Speaker 2: But the timeline for the murders is so compressed. You know,
31:33
Speaker 2: we know that they didn't happen before four am, because,
31:36
Speaker 2: as you point out, that the door dash driver was
31:38
Speaker 2: there dropping off food to Xana, and so they believe
31:41
Speaker 2: it started at four two, when Xana and Ethan presumably
31:45
Speaker 2: would have been awake and in their room eating the
31:48
Speaker 2: food delivery. And then I thought the timeline was to
31:53
Speaker 2: four eighteen, which I think is when we see the
31:56
Speaker 2: Hyundai landre leaving there. But it may be even more
32:00
Speaker 2: compressed than that, down to like four ten, four oh eight.
32:04
Speaker 3: You go ahead, you take it.
32:06
Speaker 5: Yes, isn't it about four h two to four eight
32:10
Speaker 5: to four twelve? They're not exactly sure, but it's whatever
32:13
Speaker 5: it is. I mean, the point you're making is so accurate.
32:16
Speaker 5: It was such a short amount of time. It was
32:20
Speaker 5: such you know, when he wasn't a trained assassin, and
32:24
Speaker 5: yet he was.
32:25
Speaker 4: One can only imagine if Coberger was selling filled.
32:28
Speaker 5: With so much rage that he was able to do
32:32
Speaker 5: this work with so much manic energy, so much manic,
32:36
Speaker 5: vicious viciousness.
32:38
Speaker 4: It's a horrific crime.
32:40
Speaker 2: You've got four victims potentially in the course of eight minutes,
32:46
Speaker 2: and you write in the book that that would be
32:48
Speaker 2: two minutes per person to commit these murders, to take
32:53
Speaker 2: out these young, promising lives by a guy who as
32:56
Speaker 2: far as we know, as far as we know, has
32:58
Speaker 2: never killed before. You spend some time as potentially a
33:04
Speaker 2: weakness of the prosecution's case on something we've talked about before,
33:07
Speaker 2: and that is the difference in the corner's descriptions of
33:11
Speaker 2: how at least three out of the four were killed.
33:15
Speaker 3: And I wondered if you wanted to say anything about that.
33:18
Speaker 2: Here you say, okay, they talk about the corner writes
33:24
Speaker 2: about how Kaylee and Maddie were killed and suffered visible
33:29
Speaker 2: stab wounds, quoting here from the corner suffered visible stab wounds.
33:33
Speaker 2: I think we all can understand what those are. Yet
33:36
Speaker 2: on the floor below second floor, Xana succumb to quote
33:41
Speaker 2: wounds caused by an edged weapon, which isn't the same
33:46
Speaker 2: thing as a visible stab wound. It sounds to me
33:48
Speaker 2: like they maybe slit her throat, I don't know, and
33:51
Speaker 2: then just.
33:52
Speaker 3: To finish it off.
33:53
Speaker 2: Ethan's wounds are described as quote caused by sharp focus injuries.
33:58
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means, caused by injuries caused bay,
34:01
Speaker 2: but walk us through that that those.
34:04
Speaker 4: I think you know you're you're making.
34:06
Speaker 5: I think the defense is one of the defense's best
34:10
Speaker 5: case that the coroner's report was so inexact. There were
34:17
Speaker 5: lots of screw ups in this case, and I think
34:20
Speaker 5: the corners in exactitude was one of them.
34:24
Speaker 4: I don't you know he lays the corner she.
34:27
Speaker 5: Actually I think the corner is shes with former nurse
34:30
Speaker 5: in town lays open the possibility for the defense to
34:34
Speaker 5: raise that maybe there were other assassins involved, maybe other weapons.
34:39
Speaker 5: But I don't think. I don't think that's the case.
34:41
Speaker 5: I think it's just poor use of language. The point
34:45
Speaker 5: that you're making about the difference is will be made
34:47
Speaker 5: by the defense in court and they will try to
34:50
Speaker 5: drive it at home to raise doubts in the jury's mind.
34:54
Speaker 2: Right, like, how could how could one man have done
34:56
Speaker 2: this one as far as we know, not trained assassin
34:59
Speaker 2: who you know were for the CIA for years. It's
35:01
Speaker 2: one twenty eight year year old man. And if he
35:05
Speaker 2: did do it, where were the injuries on him? Because
35:10
Speaker 2: there's evidence that at least two of the victims fought,
35:14
Speaker 2: So where are the defensive wounds?
35:16
Speaker 3: Well, where are the attack wounds on Brian Colberger?
35:19
Speaker 5: There are no scratches on Brian Colberger. What the prosecution
35:24
Speaker 5: believes I've discovered is that prior to the murders, Coburger
35:30
Speaker 5: had bought, they contend, a blue Dicky's work suit which
35:36
Speaker 5: covers from your ankles more or less up to your neck,
35:39
Speaker 5: and he wore that worksuit on the night of the murders.
35:43
Speaker 5: After the killings, that worksuit was probably drenched in blood.
35:47
Speaker 5: According to the prosecution and law enforcement theory, he took
35:51
Speaker 5: off that worksuit, put in a plastic garbage bag, and
35:54
Speaker 5: on his circuitous route back to his apartment in Washington,
36:00
Speaker 5: somewhere along the way he dropped it off through it
36:03
Speaker 5: in a river.
36:05
Speaker 4: But they've never found that, and they've never found the
36:09
Speaker 4: murder weapon.
36:10
Speaker 5: I mean, the prosecution is going to have, I believe,
36:16
Speaker 5: a difficult legal case to make, and I think the defense,
36:21
Speaker 5: they've left defense lots of avenues to pursue, lots of
36:25
Speaker 5: avenues not to raise facts, but to raise doubts.
36:30
Speaker 3: Will you point out in the book that.
36:33
Speaker 2: Kayley's dad, Steve Gonsalvez, has been working his own investigation
36:38
Speaker 2: into this case, and he apparently, among others, got his
36:42
Speaker 2: hands on a grand juror two of them, two of
36:44
Speaker 2: the grand jurors, And this may be how we know
36:47
Speaker 2: some of these facts, like the Dickey's uniform that Brian
36:51
Speaker 2: Coldberger allegedly purchased and may have been wearing, and like
36:55
Speaker 2: the fact that Brian Coldberger bought a k bar knife
36:59
Speaker 2: just like the one used in these murders months before
37:03
Speaker 2: the murders. And interestingly, though there are reportedly receipts for
37:07
Speaker 2: both of those items in Brian's accounts, neither one has
37:11
Speaker 2: been found, which, in some ways Howard is even more
37:14
Speaker 2: suspicious than actually finding them.
37:17
Speaker 5: Right and you raised Steve Gum calls Kayley's dad. I mean,
37:22
Speaker 5: he's a fascinating figure in this entire story. I mean,
37:26
Speaker 5: my heart goes out to him. You know, as the
37:29
Speaker 5: father of three children myself, how could you your heart
37:32
Speaker 5: not break over what he's been through When after the
37:35
Speaker 5: events first happened, he says, you send your daughter off
37:40
Speaker 5: to college and she comes back to you and an earn.
37:43
Speaker 5: That's one of the most poignant phrases I've ever heard.
37:46
Speaker 5: And yet I admire him and respect him for the
37:49
Speaker 5: fact that he refuses to give into events. He's not
37:52
Speaker 5: going to just sit back passively and let anyone else
37:57
Speaker 5: do it. This was his daughter, and he's determined as
37:59
Speaker 5: best he can to get to the bottom of things.
38:02
Speaker 5: And even now, well I think he believes the suspect
38:09
Speaker 5: has been caught, He's still built with a desire not
38:13
Speaker 5: just for justice, but also for retribution and vengeance.
38:19
Speaker 4: I mean, he and his family.
38:21
Speaker 5: Members support the Idaho law for a firing squad for
38:25
Speaker 5: execution on a guilty verdict if the chemicals needed for
38:30
Speaker 5: a chemical execution cannot be found again. He is Coberger's
38:36
Speaker 5: father is These are all victims of this story. This
38:39
Speaker 5: is a story where there are, as I keep on saying,
38:43
Speaker 5: no survivors. Everyone has been victimized. An entire town has
38:48
Speaker 5: been victimized.
38:49
Speaker 2: For the record, Brian Colberger denies having committed these crimes
38:53
Speaker 2: and has asserted in court that he has some sort
38:56
Speaker 2: of an alibi. Something we've discussed at length on the show.
38:59
Speaker 2: It seems incredib flimsy. He doesn't really have an alibi,
39:02
Speaker 2: his lawyers saying, as far as I can glean, he
39:04
Speaker 2: just likes to drive around at night, and that's why
39:07
Speaker 2: his car when he wasn't at his apartment at the
39:10
Speaker 2: time the murders were taking place. We'll learn more if
39:12
Speaker 2: we ever actually see a trial on this never ending
39:16
Speaker 2: pre trial motions, if if they end in an actual trial.
39:19
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Dylan, because she's the eyewitness the police
39:23
Speaker 2: had in their back pocket, and eyewitness of sorts. She
39:26
Speaker 2: didn't see him commit murders, but she described a man
39:30
Speaker 2: who matches Colberger's description with the bushy eyebrows and a
39:33
Speaker 2: COVID type mask in her apartment, in her house on
39:36
Speaker 2: the night of the murders. We believe this was as
39:37
Speaker 2: he was leaving post murders. And what I didn't fully understand.
39:42
Speaker 2: I mean, this has been reported, but she and the
39:45
Speaker 2: other roommate who was not an eyewitness but was also there,
39:51
Speaker 2: was she also there. I don't know why I'm forgetting this,
39:53
Speaker 2: but they were texting during the midst of the murders.
39:56
Speaker 3: Howard.
39:57
Speaker 5: Well, according to what I've heard, to what was given
40:01
Speaker 5: to the grand jury, they were they were concerned about
40:06
Speaker 5: the noise at the same time. You know you're asking,
40:10
Speaker 5: I'm asking. The defense will ask all sorts of reasonable
40:15
Speaker 5: rational questions. How could you not say anything?
40:19
Speaker 4: How could you not pick up the phone and call
40:21
Speaker 4: nine one one?
40:22
Speaker 5: These are not rational moments, These are uh, I believe.
40:30
Speaker 5: And I went into this with a great deal of
40:32
Speaker 5: suspicion about what was going on. I believe, you know,
40:36
Speaker 5: Dylan was, as she describes it, in a state of shock,
40:41
Speaker 5: a frozen, frozen state of shock and fright, and she
40:46
Speaker 5: just couldn't respond and her mind was not making sense.
40:50
Speaker 4: Of events.
40:51
Speaker 5: It's incredible as she waited, you know, till the next
40:54
Speaker 5: morning to make a call, and she doesn't even call
40:57
Speaker 5: the police.
40:58
Speaker 4: Even at that point she's still.
41:00
Speaker 5: She calls friends one of the fraternities and they come
41:04
Speaker 5: down and one of Ethan's friends makes the nine to
41:08
Speaker 5: one one call.
41:10
Speaker 4: To the police. These are all incredible events.
41:14
Speaker 5: As one of the reasons why this entire story has
41:18
Speaker 5: I think captivated and perplexed so many people, because it's
41:24
Speaker 5: not nice and neat where you see things on a
41:27
Speaker 5: television movie, for example, But there are a lot of
41:30
Speaker 5: things that really don't make sense because a night like
41:34
Speaker 5: that doesn't make sense.
41:36
Speaker 4: And that's sort of why I called the book When
41:39
Speaker 4: the Night Comes Falling.
41:40
Speaker 5: When the night came falling that night and that morning
41:44
Speaker 5: on November twelfth and the thirteenth, chaos, madness in all.
41:49
Speaker 2: Rain, silence about this only makes sense to me if
41:52
Speaker 2: she did not know what was happening, if she didn't
41:56
Speaker 2: think that anybody was in danger, if she thought this
41:59
Speaker 2: was a guy, viz. One of the roommates, she's annoyed,
42:02
Speaker 2: she's texting with the other roommate. They're so loud, they're annoying.
42:06
Speaker 2: That would make sense to me. That's how young people behave,
42:08
Speaker 2: like God, shut up, it's four in the morning, having
42:11
Speaker 2: zero idea they're being killed. And that then when she
42:17
Speaker 2: saw Brian leaving, she thought this was an invited guest
42:20
Speaker 2: and not a killer.
42:22
Speaker 3: That would make perfect sense to me.
42:24
Speaker 2: It doesn't line up with what's in the police affidavit, however, No, I.
42:29
Speaker 4: Think the scenario that you are saying makes sense. I
42:33
Speaker 4: think her realization at the same time is.
42:37
Speaker 5: Very much like Michael Coburger's in the sense that they
42:41
Speaker 5: have intimations of what's going but they refuse to make
42:45
Speaker 5: the leap because the leap is too horrific. It's too
42:48
Speaker 5: horrific for her to make this leap that this guy
42:52
Speaker 5: is not just a party reveler who's leaving the house
42:56
Speaker 5: if they've been whatever pulling around upstairs. He actually is
43:01
Speaker 5: a murderer, and that sensor trying to make that thought
43:06
Speaker 5: process into a complete detachment. It's the same sort of
43:10
Speaker 5: detachment that Michael Colberger does when he realizes in his
43:15
Speaker 5: mind that, oh, my gosh, my.
43:16
Speaker 4: Son might have been involved in these murders.
43:18
Speaker 5: So instead of taking a step forward, they both take
43:21
Speaker 5: a step back.
43:23
Speaker 2: Well, this leads me to one of the most interesting
43:26
Speaker 2: things in this book, and it's Melissa. Melissa is Brian
43:32
Speaker 2: Kohlberger's older sister, and much like Michael Kohlberger, who you
43:37
Speaker 2: write in the book seems to have had suspicions about
43:40
Speaker 2: his son from the start, long before the cops knew
43:43
Speaker 2: the name Brian Colberger, Melissa too had reason to suspect
43:49
Speaker 2: him and spoke to the dad Michael about it.
43:53
Speaker 3: Tell us about her.
43:55
Speaker 5: Well, Melissa is a family psychologist, and she's like.
44:00
Speaker 4: We all were reading the papers.
44:02
Speaker 5: She knows her brother who's had problems, who is a
44:05
Speaker 5: heroin addict, who has violent tempers, tantrums, and he's just
44:11
Speaker 5: a little weird. Is out there. He lives ten miles
44:15
Speaker 5: from the where the killings occurred, and he happens to
44:19
Speaker 5: be driving a white Hondai a Lantra, and that just
44:22
Speaker 5: happens to be the car the police are looking for.
44:26
Speaker 4: You know.
44:26
Speaker 5: She has her psychology degree, She's able to put the
44:30
Speaker 5: pieces together. And when she finally comes back with the
44:34
Speaker 5: Christmas holiday and she sees her brother meticulously cleaning is
44:39
Speaker 5: Hondi seeing him at one point she sees him taking
44:43
Speaker 5: his back garbage and keeping it separate from the families
44:46
Speaker 5: put into plastic banks. And you know, two and two
44:50
Speaker 5: make four. And she confronts the father, and the father
44:54
Speaker 5: is now has his daughter articulating all the thoughts that
44:58
Speaker 5: were simmering coming into realization is own mind. And there
45:04
Speaker 5: suddenly he's given them. Someone is telling them that everything
45:08
Speaker 5: you've been thinking is true is in fact true. And
45:13
Speaker 5: the only thing he can do, when confronted with this
45:15
Speaker 5: is do what Dylan does. He sort of walks back
45:18
Speaker 5: into his room. He walks off, just the way she
45:21
Speaker 5: walks back into the room. I don't want to deal
45:24
Speaker 5: with this overpowering reality.
45:26
Speaker 2: It is how could process any of that that your
45:31
Speaker 2: son may have committed this kind of heinous crime. You
45:35
Speaker 2: write in the book as follows about Melissa, Then there
45:38
Speaker 2: was okay. There he was in the kitchen lead at night,
45:41
Speaker 2: sorting his day's personal detritus into plastic ziplock bags. And
45:45
Speaker 2: though she had not set out to spy, and afterward
45:48
Speaker 2: wished she had never seen it at all, there was
45:51
Speaker 2: her brother sneaking out after midnight like a man on
45:54
Speaker 2: a mission. He walked down the long drive in the
45:57
Speaker 2: starlit chill to deposit the family's trash in a next
46:01
Speaker 2: door neighbor's bins. When she put a name and purpose
46:04
Speaker 2: to all she'd been witnessing, it left her shaking. At last,
46:08
Speaker 2: though Melissa found the will to share her increasingly certain
46:12
Speaker 2: deduction with her father. Michael listened, and yet he could
46:16
Speaker 2: not respond. A long, agonized silence filled the room until
46:22
Speaker 2: at last he turned his back and walked away. And
46:26
Speaker 2: it would have had to have been within days of that, Howard,
46:29
Speaker 2: that they were all woken up in the middle of
46:32
Speaker 2: the night by the police, guns drawn, arresting Brian Colberger.
46:38
Speaker 5: Right, And there's an irony to that because it was
46:41
Speaker 5: Michael's DNA that the police had that connected him to
46:46
Speaker 5: the knife sheet.
46:47
Speaker 4: So the father, in effect his DNA caught his son.
46:51
Speaker 5: He was trying to escape from that, and yet it
46:54
Speaker 5: was almost like a Greek tragedy.
46:56
Speaker 4: He couldn't.
46:57
Speaker 5: It was an excelebrit drawn to that that he was
47:00
Speaker 5: going to be the one to condemn his son.
47:03
Speaker 2: Yes, because of genetic genealogy, which is another revelation in
47:06
Speaker 2: the book about how the FBI knew it was Brian
47:09
Speaker 2: Coldberger or suspected him thanks to genetic genealogy. There was
47:12
Speaker 2: a touch DNA and the knife sheath. Thanks to genetic genealogy,
47:16
Speaker 2: they traced it to someone related to Michael Colberger, which
47:19
Speaker 2: led them to Brian, and they didn't share it with
47:23
Speaker 2: the local cops. There's all sorts of interesting details on
47:27
Speaker 2: why and theories as well that you're going to want
47:29
Speaker 2: to read again. The book is called When the Night
47:31
Speaker 2: Comes Falling, a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders by
47:35
Speaker 2: Howard Bloom. Please check it out as available now in
47:39
Speaker 2: whatever form you want. As I said, I already consumed
47:41
Speaker 2: it twice and recommend it to all.
47:43
Speaker 4: Howard, thank you, thank you, pleasure talking with him.
47:46
Speaker 2: Nay, my gosh, such a horrific crime. And again on
47:50
Speaker 2: six twenty seven we'll find out, we think, whether they're
47:53
Speaker 2: going to set a trial date anytime soon.
47:55
Speaker 3: Fingers crossed