Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Murder In Moscow: Bryan Kohberger’s Defense Expert Makes a Stunning Reversal (8/3/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. In
- 0:04Speaker 1: the lead up to Brian Colberger's trial, there was an
- 0:08Speaker 1: expert that was hired by the defense and his name
- 0:12Speaker 1: is Siree. Now, Siree is a former Arizona homicide investigator,
- 0:18Speaker 1: but now he deals in digital forensics and geolocation. And
- 0:23Speaker 1: as we were marching towards the trial, he was one
- 0:26Speaker 1: of the experts that was relied heavily upon by the defense. Well,
- 0:32Speaker 1: now that Brian Colberger has attempted to withdraw his plea,
- 0:36Speaker 1: mister Sirae is coming out and saying that if Brian
- 0:41Speaker 1: Colberger gets a new trial, that he should face the
- 0:44Speaker 1: death penalty. And that's because, according to Siree, the prosecution
- 0:50Speaker 1: missed some forensic evidence during their investigation. So let's dive
- 0:55Speaker 1: into this article from box News and let's see what
- 0:58Speaker 1: they have to say. Headline, Brian Colberger's former defense expert
- 1:03Speaker 1: calls for death penalty, says investigators missed key evidence. This
- 1:08Speaker 1: article was authored by Michael Ruiz, admitted Idaho murderer Brian
- 1:15Speaker 1: Colberger should get a new trial and face the death penalty.
- 1:18Speaker 1: According to a digital forensics expert hired by the defense
- 1:22Speaker 1: who says investigators miss damning evidence against the thirty year
- 1:25Speaker 1: old former criminology PhD student. Evidence, he told Fox News
- 1:30Speaker 1: digital investigators never properly analyzed or incorporated into the prosecution's case. Well,
- 1:36Speaker 1: that's not very reassuring, not exactly what you want to hear, right,
- 1:42Speaker 1: And look, I know that there's a lot of evidence
- 1:45Speaker 1: and there's a lot of information that the prosecution has
- 1:49Speaker 1: to go through, but how do you miss something that's damning?
- 1:54Speaker 1: I mean, you would think with all the people that
- 1:56Speaker 1: were involved FBI, etc. That they'd have everything on the
- 1:59Speaker 1: up and up, But according to Siree, there was some
- 2:03Speaker 1: stuff they missed. Siree is a former Arizona homicide investigator
- 2:08Speaker 1: who is now an expert on digital forensics, geolocation, and
- 2:12Speaker 1: similar data. Colberger's lawyers hired him as an expert witness
- 2:16Speaker 1: for the defense before Colberger pleaded guilty to avoid the
- 2:20Speaker 1: death penalty for the home invasion murder of Kailee Gonsalvez,
- 2:23Speaker 1: Madison Mogan, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. Colberger, now serving
- 2:29Speaker 1: four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, petitioned
- 2:34Speaker 1: the court last week to withdraw his guilty plea and
- 2:37Speaker 1: seek post conviction relief, which could send the case to
- 2:40Speaker 1: trial and put the potential death penalty back in play.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Like this is a big gamble, right if Colberger gets
- 2:47Speaker 1: a new trial, which I have my doubts about, but
- 2:49Speaker 1: if he does, he's literally playing with fire. And I
- 2:54Speaker 1: think that if he does get a new trial, he's
- 2:56Speaker 1: going to end up with the death penalty because I
- 2:59Speaker 1: believe that Brian Colbert is guilty. Now, with that said,
- 3:02Speaker 1: I'm willing to look at whatever evidence is provided. If
- 3:06Speaker 1: there's some evidence saying that Coburger's not the guy, I'd
- 3:09Speaker 1: love to see it. But as of now, I haven't
- 3:12Speaker 1: seen that evidence. Bring back the death penalty. Ray told
- 3:15Speaker 1: journalist Brian Enton in a new podcast, I'm all for this.
- 3:19Speaker 1: He said he is confident that Coburger would be convicted
- 3:22Speaker 1: and claim that Coburger's smartphone data is much more incriminating
- 3:26Speaker 1: than was revealed previously when police in the courts un
- 3:29Speaker 1: sealed thousands of pages of evidence in the case. Yo,
- 3:34Speaker 1: I want to see it. I would love to see
- 3:36Speaker 1: the documents. Right, Let's dive into him and see what's what.
- 3:41Speaker 1: And remember, when we're going through a trial, we only
- 3:44Speaker 1: get a fraction of what the prosecution has, and then
- 3:48Speaker 1: later on down the road maybe we get some more,
- 3:50Speaker 1: but for the most part, we're not getting even a
- 3:53Speaker 1: fraction of what they have, right, especially when it comes
- 3:57Speaker 1: to video and shit like that. I one hundred percent
- 4:02Speaker 1: believe that the offender who is Brian Coberger. There is
- 4:05Speaker 1: no alternative theory in my head at this point, Ray
- 4:08Speaker 1: said in the eighty two minute episode, which also included
- 4:11Speaker 1: Gonsalva's parents, Christy and Steve, and their older sister Olivia.
- 4:16Speaker 1: I have one hundred percent believe he's been in the
- 4:18Speaker 1: house before. That's possible, but I think he would have
- 4:21Speaker 1: stood out like a sore thumb. I mean, Brian Colberger
- 4:25Speaker 1: is not exactly what you would call a popular guy,
- 4:28Speaker 1: not somebody that's showing up the frat parties, right, So
- 4:31Speaker 1: he would have been somebody that stands out, and I'm
- 4:35Speaker 1: pretty sure somebody would have been like, who's this dude
- 4:37Speaker 1: hanging out here that nobody knows? Hey, Mike, you know
- 4:40Speaker 1: this dude is I know when I was younger, that's
- 4:44Speaker 1: how our frat parties were. Oh so and so is
- 4:48Speaker 1: here with so and so, And if there was somebody
- 4:50Speaker 1: at the house. You didn't know. You find out who
- 4:52Speaker 1: they are. But I guess maybe things were different up
- 4:55Speaker 1: in Moscow. I don't know, a much more trusting environment.
- 4:59Speaker 1: Perhaps I want to college at UNLV, things were a
- 5:02Speaker 1: little bit different. Ray told Enton that the evidence he
- 5:05Speaker 1: reviewed shows Coburger potentially inside the victim's home or at
- 5:09Speaker 1: least in proximity outside, and at other places when they
- 5:12Speaker 1: were present prior to the murders. He also told Fox
- 5:16Speaker 1: News Digital that he didn't have to address this evidence
- 5:19Speaker 1: in his own expert report filed by the defense in
- 5:21Speaker 1: January of twenty twenty five, because he based it only
- 5:25Speaker 1: on the contents of the reports produced by prosecution experts,
- 5:29Speaker 1: which left out something called a Location Database of Record
- 5:33Speaker 1: or locdboor report that he alleges contains damning new information
- 5:39Speaker 1: about Coburger's movements in his semester at Washington State University. Look,
- 5:44Speaker 1: I've said from the jump, I think he cased the house.
- 5:47Speaker 1: He was somebody that was around the house quite a bit.
- 5:50Speaker 1: Now was he inside, I don't know. According to mister Ray,
- 5:54Speaker 1: he believes he was. I don't know if I buy that,
- 5:57Speaker 1: but maybe I'm not saying no, but I I would
- 6:00Speaker 1: think that somebody would remember Brian Kolberger if he was
- 6:03Speaker 1: at that house, you know, one of the other fraternity
- 6:06Speaker 1: brothers or sorority sisters or somebody. Ray acknowledged that his
- 6:10Speaker 1: January twenty twenty five report appears different from his current
- 6:14Speaker 1: public comments, but said the report evaluated only the prosecution's
- 6:18Speaker 1: work product, not the underlying AT and T records. He
- 6:21Speaker 1: says investigators never mapped Why wouldn't they do that? Were
- 6:26Speaker 1: they too busy? Why aren't you mapping everything, especially considering
- 6:30Speaker 1: you have a guy that was working for the defense
- 6:32Speaker 1: who's pointing out how bad that was and how damning
- 6:36Speaker 1: those records could have been. My summary of no evidence
- 6:42Speaker 1: is based on that work product and the work product
- 6:44Speaker 1: that the state had put together at the time. He
- 6:46Speaker 1: told Fox News Digital, I can't put in my defense report. Hey,
- 6:50Speaker 1: if you guys would just look at the loc DBOR
- 6:53Speaker 1: report here, you'll solve your case and have a really
- 6:56Speaker 1: rock solid case. But I can put here are some
- 6:59Speaker 1: follow up by it that I would expect you guys
- 7:01Speaker 1: to do. And one of the things is you'll see
- 7:04Speaker 1: repeated over and over, you have to map all the data.
- 7:07Speaker 1: Please go map the data. Speaking on the podcast. Ray
- 7:10Speaker 1: said the locd bo R report contains location data that
- 7:15Speaker 1: he believes shows coburger stalk the victims. Fox News Digital
- 7:18Speaker 1: has not independently reviewed the locd bo R report either,
- 7:23Speaker 1: as it's not among thousands of pages of unsealed core
- 7:26Speaker 1: documents in the case. So we have to take his
- 7:29Speaker 1: word for it, okay, But like usual, I'll take it
- 7:32Speaker 1: with a grain of salt until I see the report
- 7:35Speaker 1: for myself. I'm not going to say one way or
- 7:37Speaker 1: the other that it's guaranteed or not. We have to
- 7:40Speaker 1: see the paperwork, right. If you look at the precise measurements,
- 7:45Speaker 1: there's probably five that land directly on what would be
- 7:47Speaker 1: the living room of the house. Ray told Entin, like
- 7:51Speaker 1: the latitude longitude is the physical house itself, and if
- 7:54Speaker 1: you put the house back on the map and you
- 7:56Speaker 1: map those the hits or inside the house. So look,
- 8:00Speaker 1: maybe he was at the house when nobody was there,
- 8:03Speaker 1: that's possible. Did he break in and rifle around a
- 8:06Speaker 1: little bit and get familiar with the layout, that's definitely possible.
- 8:12Speaker 1: But I don't think he was invited there, you know,
- 8:14Speaker 1: as part of a party or something like that. I
- 8:16Speaker 1: think people would remember, so he might have broken into
- 8:21Speaker 1: this house when nobody was there and did god knows what.
- 8:25Speaker 1: But besides that, I don't know if he was in
- 8:27Speaker 1: the house as far as you know, invited out for
- 8:29Speaker 1: a party or something. I think that's a bit of
- 8:32Speaker 1: a stretch. But all of that said, if what mister
- 8:35Speaker 1: Ray is saying is true here, then the data puts
- 8:37Speaker 1: Brian Colberger at the house. I just want to make
- 8:41Speaker 1: sure I understand correctly because I haven't heard this before.
- 8:44Speaker 1: So you're saying, based on the data that you saw
- 8:47Speaker 1: the latitude longitude of Brian Colberger, Samsung was in the
- 8:50Speaker 1: living room, and NAST the AT and T derived latitude
- 8:55Speaker 1: longitude from the AT and T network that it estimates
- 8:58Speaker 1: a location. It lands in the house, and it's a
- 9:01Speaker 1: twenty five meter range, so we're talking seventy five feet,
- 9:04Speaker 1: so it could be anywhere in the house, on any floor.
- 9:07Speaker 1: Ray said, It could technically be outside the house, it
- 9:10Speaker 1: could be on the property, but it's showing in the
- 9:13Speaker 1: immediate area. My personal opinion is when I look at
- 9:17Speaker 1: those and I map what's happening before and after, and
- 9:20Speaker 1: I'm looking at all the other evidence, I think that
- 9:23Speaker 1: these are accurate locations. Speaking with Fox News Digital, He
- 9:27Speaker 1: said he couldn't be certain what Coburger was actually or
- 9:31Speaker 1: actually went inside, but the geolocation data is damning in
- 9:34Speaker 1: other ways. So my guess is if he did go
- 9:39Speaker 1: in the house, like I just said, he broke in
- 9:42Speaker 1: one way or the other. The door was left open,
- 9:45Speaker 1: you know, something happened. Speaking with Fox News Digital, he
- 9:49Speaker 1: said he couldn't be certain that Coburger actually went inside,
- 9:53Speaker 1: but the geolocation data is damning in other ways. What's
- 9:56Speaker 1: really telling is there times where he's in that area
- 10:00Speaker 1: and then you'll see one of the victim's phones move
- 10:02Speaker 1: over to this little A and W place, and then
- 10:04Speaker 1: his phone moves over. Ray told Fox News Digital and
- 10:08Speaker 1: the idea that you know, these are just total random
- 10:11Speaker 1: and there's no accuracy to it. We're actually seeing phones
- 10:15Speaker 1: tracked together. Ray said on the podcast that his theory
- 10:19Speaker 1: is that Mogan was Coberger's primary target due to the
- 10:22Speaker 1: number of times he could trace their phones to similar locations,
- 10:26Speaker 1: but he noted later that Mogan was often with Gonsalves
- 10:29Speaker 1: and their phones moved together a lot. Look, that's been
- 10:33Speaker 1: my assessment, and the reason I say that is because
- 10:36Speaker 1: that's where the evidence has led us. Now, granted we
- 10:39Speaker 1: don't have rock solid evidence, and that's just my theory.
- 10:44Speaker 1: I believe that Maddie was the target, he said, adding
- 10:47Speaker 1: that repeated collisions between their phones placed them in roughly
- 10:51Speaker 1: the same area at the same time, including out a
- 10:53Speaker 1: Pullman party the first week of school, and at the
- 10:55Speaker 1: A and W store near the King Road crime scene.
- 10:59Speaker 1: He also flagged what he described as Coburger's broader pattern
- 11:03Speaker 1: of life, pointing to evidence of stalking before the murders. Yeah,
- 11:07Speaker 1: that was Brian Kolberger. Mister, O'm innocent out here stalking people.
- 11:14Speaker 1: Because the state's work product didn't use the data, he said.
- 11:17Speaker 1: His report only pushed back on what the state's witnesses used,
- 11:20Speaker 1: which he said is lacking and missed the phone collisions entirely.
- 11:24Speaker 1: I'm unable to locate any period of time between June
- 11:27Speaker 1: twenty third, twenty twenty two and November thirteenth, twenty twenty
- 11:31Speaker 1: two where mister Colberger's mobile device is in the same
- 11:35Speaker 1: specific area as any of the deceased mobile devices. He
- 11:38Speaker 1: wrote that pattern of life was also broken on the
- 11:42Speaker 1: night of the murders, when Ray said he believes the
- 11:44Speaker 1: plant to target Mogan went awry and resulted in him
- 11:48Speaker 1: fleeing south, where he'd never driven before. Sure sounds a
- 11:52Speaker 1: lot like my theory, huh, And listen, the only reason
- 11:55Speaker 1: I think that is because it's the most logical theory
- 11:59Speaker 1: when we use the evidence we have. But I'm open
- 12:01Speaker 1: to the evidence wherever it leads us. While prosecutors alleged
- 12:07Speaker 1: that Colberger had visited the crime scene a dozen times
- 12:10Speaker 1: before the murders and at least once the morning after,
- 12:13Speaker 1: they have not pointed to collisions with any of the
- 12:16Speaker 1: victims the way Ray described in the podcast. In a
- 12:19Speaker 1: news briefing after Coburger's guilty plead, the case lead investigators
- 12:23Speaker 1: said they didn't know who the target was. The evidence
- 12:26Speaker 1: suggested that there was a reason that this particular house
- 12:30Speaker 1: was chosen. Said then Moscow Police Corporal Brett Payne, what
- 12:34Speaker 1: the reason is? We don't know. We don't know who
- 12:37Speaker 1: the target was, and we're not going to speculate on
- 12:39Speaker 1: that up here today, but we can tell you that
- 12:42Speaker 1: for whatever reason, mister Coburger chose that residence. Perhaps it's
- 12:46Speaker 1: the location layout, we don't know. And when they were
- 12:49Speaker 1: asked by Fox News Digital if they had a motive,
- 12:52Speaker 1: lead investigators replied, we don't. Ray has maintained that investigators
- 12:58Speaker 1: missed the evidence and should go back into take another
- 13:00Speaker 1: look in case Coberger's attempt to withdraw his plea and
- 13:03Speaker 1: appeal his conviction succeeds. They need to get experts who
- 13:07Speaker 1: actually know what the hell they're looking at, and they
- 13:09Speaker 1: need to rebuild the case now, he said. Morgan Wright,
- 13:13Speaker 1: another expert on digital forensics who's not connected to the case,
- 13:17Speaker 1: said he's skeptical without seeing the locd BOR data firsthand.
- 13:22Speaker 1: Show me the report, show me the map, said right,
- 13:25Speaker 1: the host of Crime Reconstructed and the CEO and founder
- 13:28Speaker 1: of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, don't
- 13:32Speaker 1: tell me, show me. Look. I'm with them on that.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Let's see it. The days of me just trusting people
- 13:37Speaker 1: are long over. Wright, who's been following the case, that
- 13:40Speaker 1: he hasn't seen LOCDBOR references in connection with the investigation
- 13:45Speaker 1: prior to the podcast interview. Ray argues that the records
- 13:49Speaker 1: speak for themselves if investigators are willing to revisit them.
- 13:54Speaker 1: After Coburger's guilty plea, Ray said he offered to do
- 13:56Speaker 1: a debrief with the FBI to show the evidence. He
- 13:59Speaker 1: said he found and they missed. He said he got
- 14:02Speaker 1: no response, but added that he has presented before hundreds
- 14:05Speaker 1: of law enforcement agencies around the country going back to November.
- 14:09Speaker 1: He said, last week, Coburger filed a petition for a
- 14:13Speaker 1: post conviction relief, claiming he had ineffective counsel from his
- 14:17Speaker 1: defense team. So ridiculous, I mean, come on, absolutely ridiculous.
- 14:24Speaker 1: Ray also speculated that Coberger's post conviction petition was part
- 14:27Speaker 1: of a broader legal strategy by his lead defense attorney,
- 14:31Speaker 1: Anne Taylor. Despite the plea agreements waiver of most appeal rights.
- 14:35Speaker 1: That's possible because Ann Taylor knows her shit. Coburger pleaded
- 14:39Speaker 1: guilty to avoid the death penalty. This can never be
- 14:42Speaker 1: the standard investigation that we see in cases. Ray said,
- 14:46Speaker 1: this can never be acceptable. However, he said he's confident
- 14:50Speaker 1: Colburger would be convicted any way at trial if investigators
- 14:53Speaker 1: introduced the evidence he found while working with Taylor. The
- 14:57Speaker 1: time is now to start this investigation over. Ray said
- 15:01Speaker 1: Colberger had followed other people in Moscow, Pullmon area. He said,
- 15:04Speaker 1: a pair of college towns on the border of Washington
- 15:07Speaker 1: and Idaho. I think he had multiple targets throughout the
- 15:10Speaker 1: entire Moscow Pullmon area. Ray said, location information and pattern
- 15:15Speaker 1: of life is by far the most telling. Ray said
- 15:19Speaker 1: he had no doubt that Coburger committed the murders. If
- 15:22Speaker 1: he ever does walk, he will kill again. He said, Yo,
- 15:26Speaker 1: I agree with that, But as far as the other stuff,
- 15:29Speaker 1: we'll have to wait and see, because I think that
- 15:32Speaker 1: it's pretty important that we see the documentation, right, So
- 15:36Speaker 1: will we? I guess that's the question. And like usual,
- 15:40Speaker 1: we'll continue to follow along and when we have some
- 15:43Speaker 1: more information, we'll get it added to the catalog. All
- 15:47Speaker 1: the information that goes with this episode can be found
- 15:50Speaker 1: in the description box.