Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / IDAHO SLAY SUSPECT BRYAN KOHBERGER CLAIMS "I'M AUTISTIC" TO AVOID DEATH PENALTY

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IDAHO SLAY SUSPECT BRYAN KOHBERGER CLAIMS "I'M AUTISTIC" TO AVOID DEATH PENALTY · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:06
Speaker 2: A shock Coburger claim that an eyewitness says the killer
0:11
Speaker 2: fled the murder scene with a hand hel vacuum. And
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Speaker 2: now after reading court documents, we learn did Coburger get
0:22
Speaker 2: rid of his shower curtain?
0:26
Speaker 1: Wonder why?
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Speaker 2: I mean, see Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you
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Speaker 2: for being with us. Just around three am and a
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Speaker 2: man named.
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Speaker 1: Brian Christopher Coburger was taken into custody.
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Speaker 3: Coburger claims he was driving his car as he often
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Speaker 3: did to hike and run and or see the moon
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Speaker 3: and stars.
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Speaker 4: Our defens team firmly, and I mean firmly, believes in
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Speaker 4: mister Coberger's innocense.
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Speaker 2: Okay, well, she may be firm in her belief, but
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Speaker 2: a grand jury has handed down and with Trubal charging
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Speaker 2: him with four murders, the murders of four Beautiful University
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Speaker 2: Idaho students dead slaughtered in their beds, and tonight we
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Speaker 2: learned the eyewitness states the killer fled the scene with
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Speaker 2: a hand that listen.
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Speaker 4: Hippler's ruling also revealed new details of what surviving roommate
1:25
Speaker 4: Dylan Mortenson saw the night of the murders in the
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Speaker 4: closed door hearing, the defense attempts to argue Mortenson's account
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Speaker 4: is unreliable, and while the judge agrees Mortensen was likely
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Speaker 4: drunk during the murders, he points out that her statements
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Speaker 4: to police were very similar each time, and other evidence
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Speaker 4: corroborates what she witnessed. Hipler reveals that in Mortenson's second
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Speaker 4: and third interviews, she mentions the suspect carrying what looked
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Speaker 4: to be a handheld vacuum.
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Speaker 2: Oh, according to reports, that is so Coburger with the
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Speaker 2: hand hell of that?
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Speaker 1: Who else would do that? Now?
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Speaker 2: Guys, let me get straight out to Hermonia Rodriguez joining
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Speaker 2: US chief US reporter with Dailymail dot Com and host
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Speaker 2: off Welcome to magaaland podcast.
2:12
Speaker 1: No Politics on crime stories.
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Speaker 2: Okay, no crime, no crime victim is a political football,
2:20
Speaker 2: So everybody keep your politics to yourself. Back to the
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Speaker 2: hand that, Harmonia, What do you know?
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Speaker 5: That's right?
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Speaker 6: These new court documents are offering new details about the
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Speaker 6: investigation that led police to Brian Coberger. We know that
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Speaker 6: there were surviving roommates that were in the house and
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Speaker 6: one of them said that she saw a boushy eyed man.
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Speaker 6: We know Coburger's eyebrows have been a topic of debate
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Speaker 6: after this surviving witness said they saw a white, tall
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Speaker 6: man with bushy eyebrows.
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Speaker 1: Now now we.
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Speaker 6: Know that she also said in following interviews that he
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Speaker 6: was carrying Okay, that's bushie.
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Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Harmonia, look that Okay, hold that is bushi.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead. Correct.
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Speaker 6: That has been a topic of discussion, and that part
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Speaker 6: of the witnesses testimony has never changed the description of
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Speaker 6: what the suspect to look like. However, it appears on
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Speaker 6: in her initial interviews she hadn't mentioned the handheld vacuum.
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Speaker 1: Now we know that this witness has.
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Speaker 6: Said her mind wasn't clear, that she was kind of
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Speaker 6: in a dream like state. Of course, Coberger's team of
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Speaker 6: lawyers have gone after this young woman's credibility, saying that
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Speaker 6: what she is saying cannot be trusted because she admitted.
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Speaker 1: To being in a not clear state of mind.
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Speaker 6: Now, the judge said that even Ifmonia and put her up, Harmonia,
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Speaker 6: I asked you about the handheld vack and so far what.
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Speaker 2: I've heard is everything wrong. When the eyewitnesses statement, can
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Speaker 2: you tell me about the vacuum? I'll give do Bay
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Speaker 2: a chance to slice the poor witness to shreds before
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Speaker 2: I so were back together again? Thatack vack vacuum harmonia.
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Speaker 1: Right, so, as I said.
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Speaker 6: The surviving roommate said she saw the suspect bushy eyebrowed
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Speaker 6: suspect leaving with a hand held vacuum. She also had
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Speaker 6: said as we already knew that the suspect said something
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Speaker 6: like I'm here to help before he exited their home
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Speaker 6: through a sliding door quietly. This witness has said she
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Speaker 6: then went back to sleep. Wasn't clear on what happened,
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Speaker 6: but she has repeated in several interviews this detail about
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Speaker 6: the handheld vacuum.
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Speaker 2: Well, obviously it stood out in her mind. She says,
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Speaker 2: Oh my stars, he had a handback. That's not the
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Speaker 2: kind of detail you can insert into someone's memory. Okay,
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Speaker 2: I need a shrink before Dubay jumps on this. Doctor
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Speaker 2: Bethany Marshall joining us, so, I say, COO analyst joining
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Speaker 2: us out of la, author of deal Breakers. You can
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Speaker 2: find her at doctor Bethanymarshall dot com. You can see
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Speaker 2: her now on Peacock Doctor Bethany. It doesn't end there.
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Speaker 1: Everybody on the.
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Speaker 2: Panel, I want you to envision what you have in
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Speaker 2: your closet, what you keep in the deep dark recesses
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Speaker 2: in the back of your closet.
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Speaker 1: Okay, now listen to this.
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Speaker 3: The defense also argues that Moscow Pede failed to disclose
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Speaker 3: that lab testing did not reveal any of the victims
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Speaker 3: DNA in Coburger's car or apartment, but a search warrant
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Speaker 3: return did list a vacuum candister having been removed from
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Speaker 3: a closet in Coburger's Pullman apartment, where investigators also found
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Speaker 3: a black glove and receipts. Coburger's shower curtains had been removed,
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Speaker 3: and all trash cans were empty.
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Speaker 2: Well, he's certainly the Nate Nick. There's a lot there
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Speaker 2: to dissect. But can we just talk about the fact
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Speaker 2: that in his closet, in the back, dark, deep recesses
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Speaker 2: of his closet, he has a vacuum canister a spare?
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Speaker 1: Do you have one of those in your closet? By
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Speaker 1: all your designers? She used, doctor Bethany, I bet you die,
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Speaker 1: I do not.
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Speaker 2: Can we talk about the killer with a handbag? What
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Speaker 2: does it say, Nancy?
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Speaker 7: We use handbags to clean things up, right, So obviously
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Speaker 7: he was anticipating a messy scene and the fact that
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Speaker 7: he would need to clean things up, or he was
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Speaker 7: looking for tokens or fetishes or something he could suck
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Speaker 7: up before he left, so he would have something to
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Speaker 7: play with, toy with. But I think it's likely that
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Speaker 7: it was just an instrument for cleaning after at the
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Speaker 7: commission of a crime which obviously he got scared off
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Speaker 7: and he didn't complete.
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Speaker 2: Okay, maybe I'm the crazy one on this panel, but
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Speaker 2: I guess I have to spell it out for Joe
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Speaker 2: Scott Morgan and doctor Bethany Marshall.
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Speaker 1: But I need the help.
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Speaker 2: Of doctor Monte Miller joining US Director Forensic DNA Expert
6:51
Speaker 2: Specialist and forensic Science forensic Scientists for Texas Department Public Safety.
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Speaker 1: And it goes on and on.
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Speaker 2: You can find doctor Monty Miller at Crime Lab Forensic
7:02
Speaker 2: DNA Experts dot com.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Monte Miller.
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Speaker 2: Okay, address on the blackboard, spell it out for me.
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Speaker 2: Why would a killer bring a handback to a murder scene?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean did he bring it or did he
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Speaker 5: take it from there?
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Speaker 8: Yeah?
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Speaker 5: I mean you would only bring it for you know,
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Speaker 5: to clean up, to like vacuum stuff off of you
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Speaker 5: and things like that, so that you wouldn't leave it
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Speaker 5: in your car, So he might have just brought his
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Speaker 5: own and then kind of used it to clean himself
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Speaker 5: up so that he doesn't leave a mess in his car.
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Speaker 5: They didn't find anything in his car, and maybe because
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Speaker 5: he cleaned up.
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Speaker 2: Obviously he took the handback to get rid of evidence.
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Speaker 2: And no, he did not steal their vacuum cleaner. He
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Speaker 2: took the vacuum cleaner with him. The only question is
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Speaker 2: why I'm going to give Joe Scott Morgan another swing
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Speaker 2: at the ball be succinct.
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Speaker 9: So you're telling me that he thought so far ahead
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Speaker 9: that he's going to bring a handheld back with him
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Speaker 9: in addition to a knife, and he's going to take
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Speaker 9: time to utilize this vacuum cleaner in order to clean
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Speaker 9: up what's he going to clean up? All of the
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Speaker 9: wet blood in there? Because it's not going to work.
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Speaker 9: This guy's supposed to be some kind of forensic genius.
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Speaker 9: Remember they've talked about this forever and ever. This is
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Speaker 9: not going to be appropriate for the task at hand.
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Speaker 9: I can't I would.
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Speaker 1: He put him up. Scott Scott, my friend and colleague.
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Speaker 2: He brings a handback to the same that's what prosecutors
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Speaker 2: are going to argue to clean up Evans?
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Speaker 1: Was that feasible? Did it make sense?
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Speaker 5: No?
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Speaker 1: But think think think, you think, think, use that noodle.
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Speaker 2: Joe Scott, what does he do for a little He
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Speaker 2: teaches forensic science, criminology.
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Speaker 9: And his inflating what he does with forensic science. I've
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Speaker 9: gone over this over and over and over again. He
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Speaker 9: is studying criminal You're just.
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Speaker 2: Saying that because you're a forensic you don't like to
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Speaker 2: with you. He's a PhD student criminologist. He's a team
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Speaker 2: a teaching assistant.
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Speaker 9: In criminology, not forensic science. Okay, just because you.
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Speaker 1: I don't know, Okay, he certainly knows, Joe Scott.
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Speaker 2: You know what, let's just everybody stipulate he's know Joe
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Speaker 2: Scott Morgan. Now that's with his limited understanding as a
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Speaker 2: student of criminology. He takes a handback to the murder scene,
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Speaker 2: thinking somehow he's going to get rid of evidence.
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Speaker 1: Obviously that's not feasible. But in his.
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Speaker 2: Mind, having only got book learning about crime, I mean,
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Speaker 2: why else would he bring a handback to the scene.
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Speaker 1: Again, be succinct.
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Speaker 9: He not going to bring a handheld back to the scene.
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Speaker 9: I don't believe it. I'm just not buying this is
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Speaker 9: what he brought to this case.
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Speaker 2: So are you saying he still Are you saying he
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Speaker 2: stole it? Did he steal a handback? I guess house
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Speaker 2: and steals a handbag?
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Speaker 9: We have to go back?
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Speaker 1: Well, then are you saying the witness is lying?
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Speaker 9: No, I'm saying that she's not remembering correctly, is what
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Speaker 9: I'm saying. You know, bushy eyebrow's face covered, it's dark.
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Speaker 9: You know she's saying that he also had a hand
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Speaker 9: handhaild vack.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so you are accepting part of her description but
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Speaker 2: not the other part because you, a professor forensics, doesn't
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Speaker 2: think it's feasible. You know what, Let me just jog
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Speaker 2: everyone's recollection.
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Speaker 1: Listen.
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Speaker 3: The police source says Brian Coberger cleaned his car meticulously,
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Speaker 3: both inside and out, in the days leading up to
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Speaker 3: his arrests. The source, speaking anonymously, says, during the four
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Speaker 3: days of surveillance at the Coburger family's Pennsylvania home, the
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Speaker 3: suspect was detailing his white Honda a Lantra quote not
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Speaker 3: missing an inch. Some of the trash taken from the
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Speaker 3: car was deposited in a neighbor's trash bin at four
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Speaker 3: a m. Agents recovered the garbage and some items were
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Speaker 3: sent to the Idaho State Lab for testing. Detectives also
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Speaker 3: seized a car vacuum reportedly used to clean out vehicle.
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Speaker 2: Okay, doctor Bethany Marshall, that's what we call a pattern
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Speaker 2: m modus operadi method of operation. He's cleaning up at
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Speaker 2: three and four am, wearing underwear, shorts and plastic gloves
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Speaker 2: at his parents' house. He's putting I guess, evidence into
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Speaker 2: separate plastic bags, putting them in the Dixie dumpster and
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Speaker 2: putting them in the neighbors trash wearing plastic gloves.
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Speaker 1: When they go to his home.
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Speaker 2: His apartment in Woman, ten minutes away from the murder scene.
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Speaker 2: His apartment is meticulous, no trash in the trash cans,
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Speaker 2: and he has destroyed gotten rid of his shower curtain.
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Speaker 1: Think think, think think.
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Speaker 2: Of course, he took a hand back to the murder
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Speaker 2: scene and his limited understanding of what a murder scene
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Speaker 2: really is. You know, he's seen pictures and read books.
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Speaker 2: He thinks he can remove forensic evidence.
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Speaker 1: It fits perfectly with what we know of him.
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Speaker 7: Okay, So, Nancy, I think he's obsessive, compulsive, and we
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Speaker 7: see this in this meticulous planning to commit this crime.
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Speaker 7: He probably researched it. There's probably evidence in his computers.
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Speaker 7: He probably thought about it day and night, probably prepared
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Speaker 7: the car, prepared the handbag to take there, and he
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Speaker 7: probably meticulously studied the house. So criminals who want to
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Speaker 7: commit to homicide, not only are they compulsive, meaning they
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Speaker 7: just they can't discharge a new vitralized anxiety without committing
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Speaker 7: an act, but they also become so obsessed with every
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Speaker 7: single detail.
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Speaker 1: Joining me.
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Speaker 2: Now we've been holding him at Bay renowned defense attorney
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Speaker 2: joining us out.
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Speaker 1: On la Philip Dubay, Okay, have at it?
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Speaker 5: Have it?
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Speaker 10: What I mean, Listen, a lot of unsophisticated criminals think
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Speaker 10: that a dustbuster is going to pick up all shedding,
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Speaker 10: slough off in trace evidence. It's ridiculous. It's not going
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Speaker 10: to happen. You're going to leave behind minuscule.
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Speaker 5: Pieces of.
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Speaker 1: Hair follicles, skin.
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Speaker 10: Follicles, You're going to leave behind dust, your own DNA,
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Speaker 10: your own touch DNA. And to think that a dustbuster
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Speaker 10: is going to clean up the scene is actually lappable.
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Speaker 10: And frankly, this could support the argument that maybe he
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Speaker 10: is a little on the spectrum because it's kind.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So to me that argument, you have to admit
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Speaker 2: he did the crime. If you're claiming some sort of
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Speaker 2: midtal defense, you have the only way to do that
14:02
Speaker 2: under our American jurisprudence is to say I did it,
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Speaker 2: but I was insane. Okay, Now, under the spectrum does
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Speaker 2: not rise to insanity. We all know that, let's not
14:11
Speaker 2: most lead anyone regarding the definition of insanity in our country.
14:15
Speaker 2: So of course it's a given to everybody on this
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Speaker 2: panel and probably all of our viewers that a.
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Speaker 1: Handback is not going to get rid of evidence.
14:24
Speaker 2: The point is a person obsessed with crime, a person
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Speaker 2: that only knows about crime through boot learning and a classroom,
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Speaker 2: has never been to an actual murder scene, has no
14:35
Speaker 2: idea what that encompasses. A person that is anal compulsive, fastidious,
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Speaker 2: that is known to vacuum excessively, even keeping an extra
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Speaker 2: vacuum canister in the deep dark recesses of his closet
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Speaker 2: would bring a handback to a murder scene. This is
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Speaker 2: him fitting him to a t. I don't understand the
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Speaker 2: issue you got having. Chris McDonough you're the homicide investigator.
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Speaker 2: Is this making any sense? Or am I just screaming
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Speaker 2: out the window on Third Avenue here?
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Speaker 11: Well, there's a there's another possibility. I mean, remember, whatever
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Speaker 11: comes into that scene, there's a potential that it doesn't leave,
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Speaker 11: i e.
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Speaker 1: Cross contamination.
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Speaker 11: And so I'm with Doc Morgan on this one, to
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Speaker 11: be honest with you, because the other possibility is we
15:24
Speaker 11: don't know if one of the victims picked up that
15:27
Speaker 11: handback and use it as a weapon of defense whilst
15:31
Speaker 11: they were being attacked.
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Speaker 1: Okay, you've all gone insane.
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Speaker 12: The person who did his crime looked at one of
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Speaker 12: the victims instead.
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Speaker 8: I'm here to help me.
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Speaker 12: If that's not malice. That's the most type of people
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Speaker 12: that you could ever hear.
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Speaker 1: It shouldn't be rewarded.
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Speaker 7: With the suit and a first chirut every time of
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Speaker 7: what he can do.
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Speaker 12: That's why that's wow.
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Speaker 1: Straight out to an investigative reporter.
16:00
Speaker 2: The chief US reporter with Dailymail dot Com, host of
16:03
Speaker 2: Welcome to Magaland podcast, Harmonia Rodriguez Harmonia the Latest, it's
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Speaker 2: a bottshell. The defense is arguing coburger surfers autism.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, it's truly shocking. They file this motion on Monday.
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Speaker 6: It's worth noting that this defense team has filed many
16:22
Speaker 6: different motions and defenses that have delayed this case for
16:27
Speaker 6: years now. The latest they are asking that prosecutors do
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Speaker 6: not seek the death penalty because Coburger they say it's
16:35
Speaker 6: on the autism spectrum. Again, this is the first time
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Speaker 6: we hear this. We have never heard before that Coburger
16:42
Speaker 6: is autistic. Now this is going to be another court fight.
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Speaker 6: While I'm sure the prosecution asks for any evidence of
16:50
Speaker 6: this autism as again, it has never been introduced to
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Speaker 6: court before. In their motion, the defense has not filed
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Speaker 6: any evidence, any testing to support disclaim of autism, but
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Speaker 6: they want the death penalty punishment dropped before the trials.
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Speaker 2: Harmonia Rodriguez, correct me if I'm wrong, But didn't the
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Speaker 2: murders occur just before Thanksgiving break at University Idaho specifically
17:15
Speaker 2: November thirteen, twenty twenty two.
17:17
Speaker 1: Is that correct? That's a yes. No, that's that's all right.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So Harmonia, you're telling me it has taken from
17:25
Speaker 2: eleven thirteen twenty two two February twenty five for them
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Speaker 2: to determine that Coburger is autistic.
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Speaker 6: That's right, Nancy, it's a shocker. We have never heard
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Speaker 6: this before from the defense team. As again, it's another
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Speaker 6: motion that's going to delay things. Cober Girl already had
17:44
Speaker 6: the district of his trial change, the judge change, and
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Speaker 6: now the defense wants to start litigating at this point
17:52
Speaker 6: years later, whether Coberger is autistic or not.
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Speaker 2: Straight out to psychoaalyst doctor Bethany Marshall joining us from
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Speaker 2: LA specifically, it stated a quote motion to striking the
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Speaker 2: death penalty ray autism regarding autism spectrum disorder that has
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Speaker 2: just been filed by Coburger's defense.
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Speaker 1: I'd like you to weigh in, doctor Bethany. Nancy, this
18:18
Speaker 1: is just a delay tactic.
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Speaker 7: And one of the things we know about autistic individuals
18:23
Speaker 7: is that they notoriously lack insight into what is going
18:28
Speaker 7: on in the minds of others. They have a hard
18:30
Speaker 7: time reading social cues. But what we know about serial
18:34
Speaker 7: killers is that they are keenly interested in what goes
18:38
Speaker 7: on in the minds of others, stalking them, tracking them,
18:41
Speaker 7: and trying to instill fear and terror as they're killing them. So,
18:46
Speaker 7: on the one hand, you have autism, where the person
18:50
Speaker 7: has little interest in what goes on in the mind
18:52
Speaker 7: of the other. And then you have the psychopath, the
18:55
Speaker 7: alleged psychopath who's obsessed with the state of fear that
18:59
Speaker 7: he's going to induce, you know. And now see, there
19:01
Speaker 7: were a lot of witnesses to students who were in
19:04
Speaker 7: Coburger's class. None of them said that he had Askebergers
19:08
Speaker 7: or autism.
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Speaker 2: Well, what would be some symptoms or some indicators that
19:15
Speaker 2: he could be on the spectrum.
19:17
Speaker 7: Well, learning disorders that persist throughout the lifespan, narrow range.
19:24
Speaker 2: Of pH d student. He's a pH d student, he's
19:30
Speaker 2: a teaching.
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Speaker 1: Assistant communicators person.
19:35
Speaker 2: Okay, he's a PhD student making all a's. You know,
19:39
Speaker 2: doctor Bethy, let me just throw something at you. A
19:42
Speaker 2: few names. These are people that either discuss their autism,
19:47
Speaker 2: are suspected of autism, that they had autism, or who
19:53
Speaker 2: exhibit those symptoms.
19:54
Speaker 1: Okay.
19:55
Speaker 2: Albert Einstein, Anthony Hopkins, Elon Musk, Dan Ackroyd, Susan Boyle,
20:03
Speaker 2: Darryl Hannah, Tim Burton, Greta Thurnberg, Bill Gates, Sir Isaac Newton,
20:10
Speaker 2: Emily Dickinson. Jerry Seinfeld has spoken about his experiences with
20:15
Speaker 2: autism and is an advocate, Bobby Fisher, the great chess champion,
20:20
Speaker 2: Charles Darwin, Courtney Love, Lionel Messy, Michlangelo, and Mozart.
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Speaker 1: Blah blah blah, Andy Warhol. I mean help me.
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Speaker 7: Well, you know, Nancy, I will say that one of
20:30
Speaker 7: the symptoms of automism is an obsession or preoccupation with
20:36
Speaker 7: one single thing or set of things. Like an autistic
20:39
Speaker 7: child might pick up a train and just turned it
20:42
Speaker 7: over and over and over again in his hand and
20:44
Speaker 7: have no interest in the people in the room or
20:47
Speaker 7: social in that interaction or engagement. They just want that
20:50
Speaker 7: one thing. And it could be that he was his
20:52
Speaker 7: one obsession was these four students.
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Speaker 1: He's a PhD student. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
21:14
Speaker 2: Out to Phillip Debay, veteran defense attorneys won a lot
21:17
Speaker 2: of cases in court. Debay, he's a PhD student, he's
21:22
Speaker 2: making all a's. He's a teaching assistant, he teaches classes.
21:29
Speaker 2: How can this be? How can this be a defense?
21:32
Speaker 2: And it's my understanding in every jurisdiction in our country,
21:37
Speaker 2: to launch a mental defense, such as insanity or impairment,
21:42
Speaker 2: you must first admit you did the deed. You have
21:46
Speaker 2: to say I did it, but I'm autistic. I did it,
21:50
Speaker 2: but I'm insane.
21:51
Speaker 10: That's correct, But first of all, Idaho abergated the insanity defense.
21:55
Speaker 10: It doesn't even exist since nineteen eighty two, so you
21:58
Speaker 10: can't even put that on. Having said that, whenever you're
22:01
Speaker 10: charged with capital murder, at least in the data Idaho,
22:04
Speaker 10: you're on two tracks, the guilt phase and the penalty phase.
22:08
Speaker 10: Court appointed Council right now is working up both phases
22:12
Speaker 10: of trial. Their endgame, their agenda right now is to
22:16
Speaker 10: spare his life. It's clear from all their defeats in
22:19
Speaker 10: court that they realize that Brian Koberger is going down
22:23
Speaker 10: in the guilt phase. So right now they're trying to
22:25
Speaker 10: save his life. Back in I think it was two
22:28
Speaker 10: thousand and two, the US Supreme Court held of usv. Atkins,
22:32
Speaker 10: that you cannot execute the developmentally or the intellectually disabled. Now,
22:38
Speaker 10: that does not mean that you have to be living
22:40
Speaker 10: with profound mental retardation or a profound disorder on the
22:45
Speaker 10: aptism spectrum. The question is for the court and for
22:49
Speaker 10: the jury is does he have a true concept of reality?
22:53
Speaker 10: Because of this type of learning disability, it only goes
22:57
Speaker 10: to mitigation to spare his life, not to guilt.
23:01
Speaker 5: Two.
23:01
Speaker 2: Chris mcdonnald joining me, founder of the Cold Case Foundation,
23:07
Speaker 2: former homicide detective with literally hundreds of death investigations under
23:11
Speaker 2: his belt. I found him on his YouTube channel, the
23:16
Speaker 2: Interview Room, and he has researched and investigated the Idaho
23:21
Speaker 2: slaves himself.
23:22
Speaker 1: Chris McDonough.
23:25
Speaker 2: Let me just throw this at you, since my experts
23:27
Speaker 2: seem to ignore it whenever I say it. According to
23:31
Speaker 2: Harmonia Rodriguez and the court filing, she's right. The defense
23:36
Speaker 2: is now filing motion to strike death penalty regarding autism
23:40
Speaker 2: spectrum disorder.
23:44
Speaker 1: Chris, He's a PhD student that.
23:47
Speaker 2: Teaches criminology and supervises dozens and dozens of students.
23:55
Speaker 1: Do you buy it?
23:57
Speaker 11: No, I don't buy it. And two words right, thought control.
24:01
Speaker 1: It's not thought you.
24:02
Speaker 2: Were going to say as go ahead, Well, well, and
24:08
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to get there one hundred percent.
24:11
Speaker 11: Nancy, where you know this guy if he's our guy,
24:15
Speaker 11: which the DNA evidence is pointing that he potentially could be. Allegedly,
24:21
Speaker 11: this guy is methodical and that means you know they're
24:25
Speaker 11: going to look at a state of mind from the
24:26
Speaker 11: prosecution side, does you know more than anybody. You know
24:30
Speaker 11: what's his what's his evil intent here? Does he have
24:33
Speaker 11: an evil mind? And does he know that society everything
24:36
Speaker 11: that he would do once he committed that crime would
24:40
Speaker 11: be looked under that looked at through that lens. So
24:44
Speaker 11: I think he is playing a game here, and I
24:48
Speaker 11: think that the defense attorneys are listening to what he's
24:52
Speaker 11: probably saying behind the scenes. It won't surprise me if
24:56
Speaker 11: he ends up in the courtroom really pushing his defense
25:01
Speaker 11: and the defense basically just becomes a sideline.
25:07
Speaker 2: You mean, pushing the autistic theory and the defense to
25:11
Speaker 2: the murders becomes a sideline.
25:13
Speaker 8: Yes, exactly.
25:14
Speaker 1: You didn't get to the BS part.
25:16
Speaker 11: Well. I think he's in deep here, and I think
25:21
Speaker 11: the firing of his attorney recently, remember Ted Bundy did
25:24
Speaker 11: the same thing, and a superior court judge says, you know,
25:28
Speaker 11: mister Bundy, you're so smart. You really had an opportunity
25:33
Speaker 11: of a future and I would have loved to hear
25:36
Speaker 11: you defend other things in this court of law.
25:39
Speaker 1: But you took the wrong path.
25:41
Speaker 7: When you lived in a small college town. It occurred
25:45
Speaker 7: to not know exactly.
25:47
Speaker 3: Four students from University of Idaho murdered.
25:51
Speaker 6: One of the neighbors down there of the growth called
25:54
Speaker 6: and said, I want to tell you I'm.
25:56
Speaker 1: A neighbor and Kaylee and Maddie are both dead.
26:01
Speaker 2: Revelation We now learn an eyewitness says the killer fled
26:05
Speaker 2: the scene of the Idaho slaves with a vacuum cleaner.
26:10
Speaker 2: We assume that means a handvac Now welcome to the
26:14
Speaker 2: crazy house, because I've got one guest claiming that he
26:20
Speaker 2: stole the handback from the victims. I've got another guest
26:24
Speaker 2: stay stating that a victim tried to fight off the.
26:27
Speaker 1: Killer with a hand that reality check.
26:32
Speaker 2: This will not be the first killer that tried to
26:36
Speaker 2: sanitize a scene.
26:38
Speaker 1: Does anybody recall Photus Dulo's photos.
26:41
Speaker 13: Dulos, husband of missing Jennifer Dulo's, takes an employee's Toyota
26:44
Speaker 13: Tacoma borrowed without permission, to a car wash and to
26:48
Speaker 13: tail shop to try to clean a brown colored stain
26:50
Speaker 13: from the seats. Dulos tells the employee to replace the
26:53
Speaker 13: front seats, and he does, but keeps the originals, ultimately
26:57
Speaker 13: giving them to police. Police allege the stains blood.
27:00
Speaker 2: He's not the only one I assume you all remember
27:03
Speaker 2: the beautiful young teacher out of Memphis, Eliza Fletcher, out
27:07
Speaker 2: jogging minding her own business. Four thirty am was the
27:10
Speaker 2: only time she could work out because.
27:11
Speaker 1: She worked and took care of children. Remember her killer.
27:15
Speaker 4: The man accused of abducting and murdering Eliza Fletcher, is
27:18
Speaker 4: seen cleaning out his car just hours after the Memphis
27:21
Speaker 4: teacher disappeared. Video shows Cleota Abston spending more than an
27:25
Speaker 4: hour in the passenger side of his suv. A witness
27:29
Speaker 4: says Abstin vigorously clean the interior of his car with
27:32
Speaker 4: a carpet cleaner. Fletcher's dead body was found close to
27:36
Speaker 4: where police said Abstin is seen cleaning out his vehicle.
27:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it goes on and on and on.
27:42
Speaker 2: You've got Scott Peterson that suddenly cleaned the whole apartment,
27:45
Speaker 2: the whole home after he murdered Lacy and Connor. You've
27:49
Speaker 2: got Jody Arius who cleaned up and even did laundry.
27:54
Speaker 1: Luckily, she left her digital.
27:56
Speaker 2: Camera in the washing machine, which revealed her foot by
28:00
Speaker 2: the dead body. But the cleaning, the obsessive cleaning, the
28:04
Speaker 2: thought that you can somehow wash away forensics, that doesn't happen.
28:09
Speaker 1: Joe Scott, No, it doesn't.
28:12
Speaker 9: I've held early on, and you know I've been proven wrong.
28:14
Speaker 9: I think at this point in time, based on the evidence,
28:18
Speaker 9: I held that the car was going to be quote
28:20
Speaker 9: unquote a rolling crime scene, that it would be there'd
28:25
Speaker 9: be so much transfer evidence in there. Because you know,
28:29
Speaker 9: having worked many many sharp force injury related homicides over
28:33
Speaker 9: the course of my career, you've got four victims. There's
28:39
Speaker 9: no way that this individual could not have been potentially
28:42
Speaker 9: supersaturated with blood and transferred that evidence into the car.
28:46
Speaker 9: And right now that hasn't occurred. So yeah, you know,
28:51
Speaker 9: when you think about it, I think that there is
28:53
Speaker 9: obviously evidence that this guy is cleaning. However, what's the
28:57
Speaker 9: choice here? Is he cleaning the crimes seen with a
29:00
Speaker 9: handheld back or does he clean his car with a
29:03
Speaker 9: hand held back? I don't know. Did he show up
29:05
Speaker 9: he's so deranged and put him up?
29:09
Speaker 1: Why do I have to choose?
29:11
Speaker 2: You've got an eyewitness stating she sees the tall, white
29:14
Speaker 2: male with bushy eyeberries, wearing a face mask, lean and
29:17
Speaker 2: he's got a handback. You have, I mean this is
29:20
Speaker 2: a pattern, Joe Scott. Then You've got his apartment immaculate,
29:24
Speaker 2: where his shower curtain has been taken out and the
29:27
Speaker 2: rings are still up there, but the shower curtain's gone.
29:29
Speaker 1: What could possibly have been on it? Blood? Maybe think
29:32
Speaker 1: he think?
29:33
Speaker 2: And hiding an extra vacuum canister in the back of
29:37
Speaker 2: his closet.
29:38
Speaker 1: That's all deduction.
29:40
Speaker 2: We know that the law enforcement watched him meticulously clean
29:45
Speaker 2: out his car for hours.
29:48
Speaker 1: His sister even said so.
29:51
Speaker 2: Then they see him at three am cleaning out the
29:54
Speaker 2: house getting rid of evidence.
29:56
Speaker 1: He can't stop himself.
29:59
Speaker 2: Does it make sense to you and I, to you
30:00
Speaker 2: and me that he took in a handback.
30:03
Speaker 1: To try to get rid of evidence.
30:04
Speaker 2: Not because we've been to murder scenes we know that's impossible,
30:08
Speaker 2: But a twenty nine year old pH D sceunit in
30:12
Speaker 2: criminology who's never been to a real murder scene probably.
30:15
Speaker 1: Thinks, hey, I can get rid of evidence.
30:18
Speaker 2: He planned everything meticulously, Joe Scott, this is so am Yeah, but.
30:22
Speaker 9: He still doesn't wear a belt where he can put
30:25
Speaker 9: the sheath of the knife on it and hold it.
30:28
Speaker 9: He leaves that behind. So if he's so ocd, you know,
30:32
Speaker 9: why in the hell did he leave that critical piece
30:35
Speaker 9: of evidence behind which, by the way, which by the
30:38
Speaker 9: way contains allegedly his DNA. He left it behind, Nancy,
30:44
Speaker 9: So Joscott go in, He's going.
30:46
Speaker 1: To clean quiet.
30:48
Speaker 2: We are not the engineers of the evidence. We take
30:52
Speaker 2: it as we find it and we build our case.
30:55
Speaker 2: How many times, Joe Scott, I'm really actually surprised at you.
30:59
Speaker 1: How many times have we said, what an idiot?
31:02
Speaker 2: Idiots because they do idiotic things. Well, you're even criminal masterminds.
31:10
Speaker 9: Your supposition here is that everything is based upon this
31:14
Speaker 9: eyewitness statement in the dark, in this hallway where you
31:19
Speaker 9: can't make out specifics. So I don't know he's carrying
31:22
Speaker 9: a handheld back. Well, gee whiz, what brand was it?
31:26
Speaker 9: I don't know?
31:27
Speaker 1: Okay, question to you, Joe Scott. You're doing what Philip
31:31
Speaker 1: Dubay was doing earlier. That is, you're parsing.
31:34
Speaker 2: You're cherry picking the parts of her eyewitness testimony that
31:37
Speaker 2: you like. You're going to take some, Okay, So you
31:40
Speaker 2: want to throw it all of her testimony?
31:41
Speaker 9: Then, no, I want to know where was the knight?
31:44
Speaker 1: You only want to keep the parts you like.
31:46
Speaker 9: No, it's not that I want to keep. I want
31:48
Speaker 9: to seek the truth in this and what is available?
31:51
Speaker 2: Tell me why, and the witness says, handback, you know what,
31:54
Speaker 2: let's talk about the shower curtain crime stories with Nancy
32:07
Speaker 2: Grace Harmonio Rodriguez joining US chief US reporter dailymail dot Com.
32:14
Speaker 1: Tell me about the missing shower curtain. That's right.
32:17
Speaker 6: We know that Coberger took a lot of measures to
32:20
Speaker 6: clean everything in his life following this murder. When detectives
32:25
Speaker 6: reached his Washington home, they found that there was no
32:28
Speaker 6: shower curtain, of course, suggesting maybe he could have taken
32:31
Speaker 6: a shower in there and there was evidence in it
32:34
Speaker 6: to get rid of. There was also no trash at all, Nancy,
32:37
Speaker 6: and this is something that he was also doing in
32:39
Speaker 6: his parents' house in Pennsylvania. He was not throwing his
32:42
Speaker 6: own trash out. We know he was wearing gloves in
32:45
Speaker 6: his parents' house, So we know Coburger tried to cover
32:48
Speaker 6: his tracks, which is why, as your guests are mentioning,
32:52
Speaker 6: there is a juxtaposition because he seemed to be so
32:54
Speaker 6: careful in some ways, or attempted to be careful, but
32:58
Speaker 6: then did things like leaving a knife sheet behind and
33:01
Speaker 6: maybe thinking he could clean up a crime scene with
33:04
Speaker 6: a handbag, which of course is absolutely impossible, and I
33:07
Speaker 6: think he should have known that as.
33:09
Speaker 1: A PhD student of criminology.
33:11
Speaker 6: I mean, you may be able to pick up some hairs,
33:13
Speaker 6: but he must have expected that this scene was going
33:15
Speaker 6: to be bloody and that a handbag would not have help.
33:18
Speaker 6: His home showed that he was taken measures to make
33:22
Speaker 6: sure there was no evidence there.
33:24
Speaker 12: I don't like you he did a white color craft.
33:28
Speaker 12: This isn't a white color crime.
33:30
Speaker 7: This is this.
33:31
Speaker 1: Is people who you work your whole life.
33:33
Speaker 12: To get him to go to college, and then they
33:35
Speaker 12: get killed while they're sleep that night. And then this
33:39
Speaker 12: guy like he just like traded insider trading, but his
33:43
Speaker 12: own company stocks.
33:44
Speaker 1: It's not white collar.
33:48
Speaker 2: And as we go to air tonight, wehe Larren Coiburger
33:50
Speaker 2: has replaced fired a lawyer Listen.
33:54
Speaker 14: Brian Coburger is fine tuning the team that will represent
33:57
Speaker 14: him at trial in August. Jay Logston and Idaho public
34:01
Speaker 14: defender assisting Ann Taylor will be replaced with a Northern
34:04
Speaker 14: California attorney who specializes in DNA and previously testified as
34:08
Speaker 14: a paid consultant for the defense, Biccob Barlow, formerly of
34:12
Speaker 14: the San Francisco Public Defender's Office has been admitted to
34:15
Speaker 14: the case pro Hawk Vice Barlow has run a private
34:18
Speaker 14: law office with a focus on cases that involve forensic
34:21
Speaker 14: DNA for over ten years and claims to have led
34:24
Speaker 14: the first successful challenge of str DNA evidence in the US.
34:29
Speaker 2: Ryan Heiberger is not the first famous celebrity defendant.
34:35
Speaker 1: To get rid of their lawyer. Is a name Michael
34:38
Speaker 1: Jackson ring a bell.
34:39
Speaker 4: Just after Michael Jackson's Santa Barbara indictment on nine felony
34:43
Speaker 4: accounts in the alleged molestation of a young boy, Jackson
34:46
Speaker 4: fires his attorneys, Mark Garrigos and Benjamin Braffman, the singer
34:50
Speaker 4: commenting that he needs the full attention of his representation
34:53
Speaker 4: while his life is at stake.
34:55
Speaker 1: Joining me.
34:55
Speaker 2: Philip Debay, veteran trial lawyer out of the LA Jurisdiction,
34:59
Speaker 2: has handled many a case in court. I remember when
35:03
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson fired Mark Garrigos and Mark Gegos has tried
35:07
Speaker 2: a lot of cases, but Jackson did it.
35:11
Speaker 10: Yeah, but there's a difference between being privately retained and
35:14
Speaker 10: court appointed. In the court appointed cases, council can withdraw
35:18
Speaker 10: if there is a conflict or if they feel they
35:20
Speaker 10: don't have the skills that are required to do the representation,
35:24
Speaker 10: so you bring somebody else on who's paid by the court.
35:28
Speaker 10: It's very very common. In this particular case, Ann Taylor
35:31
Speaker 10: is lead counsel. She's the captain of the ship, and
35:34
Speaker 10: she needs to decide what, if any type of assistance
35:37
Speaker 10: she needs by way of second chair, third chair, fourth chair,
35:41
Speaker 10: who's going to do the science and who's going to
35:43
Speaker 10: do the mitigation. And it seems like the people that
35:46
Speaker 10: they had for the DNA or for the science weren't
35:48
Speaker 10: well equipped enough to defend him with this mountain of
35:52
Speaker 10: forensic evidence. And I think the endgame initially was to
35:56
Speaker 10: try to get all the forensics suppressed. When that failed,
36:00
Speaker 10: now is bringing onboard people who are really lettered and
36:04
Speaker 10: schooled in the forensics.
36:06
Speaker 2: Philip Dubay, do you think it has anything to do
36:10
Speaker 2: with the replaced fired lawyer Logsden putting not one but
36:17
Speaker 2: both feet in his mouth last week in court when
36:21
Speaker 2: he described our country, America, let me get this right,
36:25
Speaker 2: as a panopticon, which is essentially a large prison with guards,
36:31
Speaker 2: a surveillance state where your privacy is going to be
36:35
Speaker 2: trampled upon by the police.
36:38
Speaker 1: He said that, and it made all the headlines.
36:40
Speaker 10: Well, at a minimum, it's problematic because everybody's under a
36:44
Speaker 10: gag order. You should not be talking to the press,
36:46
Speaker 10: giving any media statements about the case, about the system,
36:50
Speaker 10: about law enforcement.
36:51
Speaker 1: It was in court. It was in court, open court.
36:57
Speaker 2: Even a mouse in the corner could hear it. I
36:59
Speaker 2: don't know what you're talking about. Privacy, No, I understand.
37:02
Speaker 10: But the point is, I don't think that's enough to
37:05
Speaker 10: remove court appointed counsel from the case. You have to
37:09
Speaker 10: show that counsel just simply cannot perform to the degree
37:14
Speaker 10: other similarly attorneys perform constitutionally. Anyway.
37:20
Speaker 7: A million people can tell me you don't let it consume you,
37:24
Speaker 7: be patient, don't think about it, just you know.
37:27
Speaker 1: But I am me.
37:29
Speaker 14: I I can't.
37:31
Speaker 1: This is my daughter to serve, best friend.
37:35
Speaker 7: I can't stop. Just can you consume me by it?
37:41
Speaker 1: In the last hour was a bombshell.
37:42
Speaker 2: The defense now claims that they are advancing the theory
37:48
Speaker 2: that Brian Coberg or the PhD student, the teaching assistant,
37:51
Speaker 2: and the criminology department at Pullman is autistic. Harmonia Rodriguez again,
37:58
Speaker 2: tell me about that claim.
38:00
Speaker 1: Right, so this is a new claim.
38:01
Speaker 6: We had never heard before in the years we have
38:04
Speaker 6: been covering this case, and it's interesting that it comes
38:07
Speaker 6: right after the Coburger defense team replaced one lawyer with
38:12
Speaker 6: another who's more focused on DNA. It also came after
38:15
Speaker 6: the judge said he was not going to throw out
38:18
Speaker 6: the DNA and obtained through genetic tracking. Now, Coberger's defense
38:24
Speaker 6: has asked the prosecution to drop the death penalty, claiming
38:28
Speaker 6: that Coberger is in the autism spectrum. Again, they submitted
38:33
Speaker 6: no evidence of this, no test, no historical documentation of
38:39
Speaker 6: this diagnosis. So we are sure to see the prosecution
38:43
Speaker 6: now ask for evidence of this alleged autistic diagnosis.
38:47
Speaker 2: Doctor Monty Miller and joining me at a Riverside, California
38:50
Speaker 2: Director forensic DNA Experts, Doctor Miller, again, thank you for
38:55
Speaker 2: being with us, Doctor Miller. The odds in this case
38:59
Speaker 2: that the DNA is incorrect, I mean it's hard for
39:05
Speaker 2: a lay person to believe.
39:07
Speaker 1: I didn't believe the first.
39:08
Speaker 2: Time I used DNA Joksuribo nucleic acid in court, but
39:12
Speaker 2: I had to check it and it's correct. The odds
39:15
Speaker 2: are like one in eight actilion that it could be
39:19
Speaker 2: anybody else's DNA, but Cobrews, would you agree with that
39:24
Speaker 2: type of statistic? In DNA analysis the way I would
39:27
Speaker 2: do them, you end up basically with a number so big,
39:31
Speaker 2: just like that one that says the DNA came from him.
39:35
Speaker 5: I mean, it's to.
39:37
Speaker 8: That point where scientifically, logically, statistically, you've ruled out anything else.
39:45
Speaker 8: It really unless somebody else's DNA matches him, and somebody
39:50
Speaker 8: else's DNA that matched him was left there and implicated him,
39:55
Speaker 8: and so the chances of that happening are just zero.
39:59
Speaker 1: Just got more.
40:00
Speaker 2: You're joining me, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, Scott, Do
40:04
Speaker 2: you agree with doctor Monte Miller those statistics are real?
40:09
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean one thousand percent. And I have to
40:12
Speaker 9: tell you, no, he does not have an expectation of
40:16
Speaker 9: privacy relative to any of this biological evidence that they
40:20
Speaker 9: have collected. And they're trying to, you know, essentially recap
40:24
Speaker 9: the evidence and how was collected and how was utilized
40:27
Speaker 9: in this particular case. And I think the defense realizes
40:30
Speaker 9: that this is a real up hill battle when you
40:33
Speaker 9: begin to consider the numeric values involved in this.
40:36
Speaker 2: So Phillip debate veteran trial lawyer joining us out of LA.
40:40
Speaker 2: Bottom line, the DNA is irrefutable one in eight octillion
40:48
Speaker 2: that this DNA could have been led by anybody other
40:51
Speaker 2: than Brian Coburger on a ninth sheath under a dead body.
40:57
Speaker 2: So where can they go now with a mental defect client.
41:04
Speaker 2: That's what's happening, Philip, Well, first of.
41:06
Speaker 10: All, in the guilt phase, I think the only thing
41:08
Speaker 10: that the touch DNA proves is that somebody with his
41:13
Speaker 10: DNA on a snap left it at the scene. It
41:16
Speaker 10: does not, in the fact, prove that he committed the
41:19
Speaker 10: quadruple Hama side. It just puts his touch DNA on
41:24
Speaker 10: some item that's in the stream of commerce at the scene.
41:28
Speaker 10: So the question is going to become for the state,
41:31
Speaker 10: what else do they have to put him at that house?
41:34
Speaker 10: Slitting all these students' throats.
41:37
Speaker 2: We remember American hero police officer Christopher Reese, Virginia, HPD,
41:42
Speaker 2: shot and killed in the line of duty, passed away
41:45
Speaker 2: along with partner Officer Cameron Gervin, survived by loving family,
41:52
Speaker 2: Sentenced to life without him. American hero Officer Christopher Reese.
41:59
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace signing off goodbye friend,