Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Murder In Moscow: The Long Legal Road Behind Kohberger’s Latest Filing (Part 1) (8/5/26)

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Murder In Moscow: The Long Legal Road Behind Kohberger’s Latest Filing (Part 1) (8/5/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. Now
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: that Brian Colberger is back in the conversation, I thought
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it would be a good time to talk about how
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: we got to where we are. That way, some of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the people that might not be as familiar with the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: whole story get to familiarize themselves with what went down.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: So let's get started. The murders of four University of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Idaho students shattered Moscow, Idaho, and became one of the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: most closely watched criminal cases in modern American history. What
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: began as an incomprehensible act of violence inside an off
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  Speaker 1: campus home soon developed into an enormous investigation spanning several states.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: For weeks, the public knew the names of the victims,
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  Speaker 1: but not the identity of the person investigators believed had
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: killed them, and that uncertainty fueled fear, speculation, suspicion, and
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  Speaker 1: a relentless demand for answers. The arrest of Brian Colberger
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: appeared to give the investigation a direction and the community
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: at least the beginning of an explanation. His prosecution then
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: unfolded through years of forensic disputes, evidentary battles, procedural delays
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and arguments about whether he could receive a fair trial.
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  Speaker 1: When Coburger eventually pleaded guilty, the agreement appeared to bring
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  Speaker 1: that prolonged legal struggle to a definitive end. His newly
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  Speaker 1: filed effort to withdraw those pleas now threatens to reopen
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  Speaker 1: nearly every question the agreement was supposed to resolve. The
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  Speaker 1: issue is no longer limited to whether a prosecutor is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: assembled a persuasive murder case against them. It's now also
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  Speaker 1: whether Coburger can repudiate solemn admissions after receiving the central
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  Speaker 1: benefit of his bargain. To understand why Coburger's current challenge
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: carry such weight, the case must be considered from the beginning,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: rather than reduced to the latest filing. The story began
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  Speaker 1: with four young people whose lives converged in Moscow through friendship, college, work,
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  Speaker 1: and the orderdinary routines of student life. Kalley Gonsolvis Madison Mogan,
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  Speaker 1: Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were never merely names printed
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in charging documents. There were daughters, a son, siblings, classmates, coworkers,
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  Speaker 1: and friends whose futures were violently taken from them. Their
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: deaths transformed to residents once associated with laughter and companionship
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  Speaker 1: into the center of a national murder investigation. Every procedural
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: argument that followed grew out of what happened inside that
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  Speaker 1: house during the early morning hours of November thirteenth, twenty
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: twenty two. The legal case frequently became technical, but its
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: human foundation never changed. Four people were killed, four families
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  Speaker 1: were devastated, and an entire community was forced to live
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  Speaker 1: with the consequences. That reality explains both the extraordinary public
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  Speaker 1: attention and the emotional importance of finality. It also explains
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  Speaker 1: why the current attempt to undo the guilty plea is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: reopening wounds far beyond the court room. The hours before
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  Speaker 1: the murder appeared ordinary, which made the violence that followed
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  Speaker 1: even more difficult to comprehend. Gonsalves and Mogan spent part
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  Speaker 1: of the evening together in downtown Moscow before returning to
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  Speaker 1: the King Road residence. Kernodle and Chapin attended a gathering
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  Speaker 1: connected to Ethan's fraternity and later returned to the house
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  Speaker 1: as well. Other residents were inside the home, creating a
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  Speaker 1: setting that was occupied rather than isolated. Food was ordered,
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  Speaker 1: messages were exchanged, and then I progressed without any public
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: indication that four people were in immediate danger. Somewhere during
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  Speaker 1: those final hours, however, the ordinary rhythm of their lives
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  Speaker 1: was interrupted by a person carrying a knife. The attacks
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  Speaker 1: occurred across different levels of the house and left investigators
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  Speaker 1: with complicated scenes to reconstruct. The killer departed before police
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  Speaker 1: were called, leaving surviving witnesses and physical evidence behind. The
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: delay before the emergency call later became one of many
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: subjects distorted by public speculation, Yet the central fact remained
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  Speaker 1: that the victims had been attacked in a place where
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  Speaker 1: they should have been safe. When officers entered the residents,
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  Speaker 1: they encountered a scene that demanded both urgency and extreme care.
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  Speaker 1: The house contained multiple victims, multiple rooms of interest, and
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  Speaker 1: potential evidence that could easily have been contaminated or misunderstood.
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  Speaker 1: Investigators had to determine where the attacks began, how the
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  Speaker 1: assailant moved, and whether more than one person could have
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  Speaker 1: been involved. They also had to protect surviving residents while
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  Speaker 1: separating reliable information from shock, confusion, and trauma. The scale
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  Speaker 1: of the scene required cooperation among local police, state authorities,
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  Speaker 1: FORENDSIC specialists, and the FBI. Evidence. Technicians documented blood patterns,
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  Speaker 1: collected biological material, photograph rooms, and preserved objects that might
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  Speaker 1: connect the killer to the house. Detectives began constructing timelines
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: from phones, cameras, witness accounts, vehicles, and digital records. At
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  Speaker 1: the same time, police had to reassure a frightened community
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  Speaker 1: without revealing information that could compromise the investigation. Their limited
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  Speaker 1: public statements created a vacuum that online speculation quickly filled.
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  Speaker 1: That early tension between investigative secrecy and public demand followed
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  Speaker 1: the case through every stage that came afterward. Moscow was
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  Speaker 1: not accustomed to a crime of this magnitude, and the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: killings changed the atmosphere of the city almost immediately. Students
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  Speaker 1: left town, families questioned whether the campus was safe, and
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  Speaker 1: rumors circulated faster than investigators could answer them. Ordinary acquaintances
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  Speaker 1: of the victims were scrutinized by strangers who had no
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  Speaker 1: access to the evidence. Surviving roommates were subjected to grow
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  Speaker 1: tesque accusations despite having endured an unimaginable night. Friends, former partners, neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: and people appearing briefly in videos were transformed into suspects
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: by online communities. Some individuals were forced to publicly defend
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  Speaker 1: themselves against theories built from coincidence and incomplete information. The
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  Speaker 1: frenzy demonstrated how quickly true crime interest could become detached
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  Speaker 1: from responsibility. It also placed additional pressure on police to
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  Speaker 1: identify a suspect before speculation caused even more damage. Investigators
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  Speaker 1: nevertheless maintained that they would follow evidence rather than public demands,
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  Speaker 1: and that commitment ultimately led them away from the early
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  Speaker 1: Internet theories and towards Brian Cohberger. Coburger was not initially
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  Speaker 1: a public figure in the investigation, which made his arrest
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  Speaker 1: especially startling. He was a graduate student studying criminology at
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  Speaker 1: Washington State University, only ashore drive from Moscow. His academic
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  Speaker 1: background immediately became part of the story because it appeared
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  Speaker 1: unnervingly connected to the crime he was accused of committing.
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  Speaker 1: Reporters examined his education, former classmates discussed his personality, and
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  Speaker 1: strangers searched his past for signs that might explain the allegations.
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  Speaker 1: That attention sometimes created the false impression that study in
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  Speaker 1: crime was itself evidence of criminality. It was not, and
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  Speaker 1: the prosecution's case could never legitimately rest on his academic interests.
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  Speaker 1: What mattered was whether physical, digital, and circumstantial evidence connected
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  Speaker 1: him to the victims and the house. Investigators believed that
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  Speaker 1: several independent lines of evidence did exactly that. Their theory
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: did not emerge from one dramatic discovery, but from a
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  Speaker 1: chain of information developed over time. The strength of the
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  Speaker 1: case therefore depended on how securely those links held together,
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  Speaker 1: and one of the earliest major investigative leads involved a
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  Speaker 1: white Sudan captured on surveillance near the King Road residence.
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  Speaker 1: Police reviewed extensive video from homes, businesses, campuses, and roadways
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  Speaker 1: in an effort to trace the vehicle's movements. Analysts initially
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: described the car broadly before narrowing their assessment toward a
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  Speaker 1: white Hondai A Lantra. The vehicle appeared in the neighborhood
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  Speaker 1: multiple times before leaving rapidly around the period of the murders.
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  Speaker 1: That pattern made it more significant than a car merely
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  Speaker 1: passing through a college town. Investigators and search records for
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  Speaker 1: similar vehicles associated with students and residents in the surrounding area.
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  Speaker 1: Coburger owned a white Hondai A Lantra and had registered
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  Speaker 1: it with Washington State University campus police. Located the vehicle
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  Speaker 1: and connected it to him through university information. From that
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  Speaker 1: point forward, detectives had a person whose car resembled the
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  Speaker 1: one repeatedly recorded near the crime scene. The vehicle evidence
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  Speaker 1: did not prove murder by itself, but it gave investigators
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  Speaker 1: a concrete lead to examine alongside the forensic evidence. The
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  Speaker 1: most consequential physical item recovered from the house was a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: knife sheath found near one of the victims. Investigators believed
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the sheath had been left behind by the killer during
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the attack. A metal snap on the sheath reportedly contained
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: a small amount of male DNA. Because the murder weapon
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: itself had not been recovered, the sheath became a critical
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  Speaker 1: link between the crime and whoever had carried the knife.
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  Speaker 1: The sample was limited, which made the methods used to
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  Speaker 1: identify its possible source a central issue in the litigation.
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  Speaker 1: Investigators eventually turned to genetic genealogy to generate a lead.
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  Speaker 1: That process pointed toward Coberger's family line and focused attention
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  Speaker 1: more sharply on him. Law enforcement then monitored Coburger as
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  Speaker 1: he traveled from Washington to Pennsylvania with his father. Trash
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  Speaker 1: collected from Coburger's family residence was used to compare DNA
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  Speaker 1: associated with a close male relative. The combined results gave
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: authorities grounds to pursue a direct sample and see Coburger's arrest.
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  Speaker 1: Genetic genealogy became one of the most controversial parts of
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  Speaker 1: the case because it occupied the boundary between investigative innovation
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  Speaker 1: and personal privacy. The technique can help identify an unknown
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  Speaker 1: person by comparing crime scene DNA with genetic information connected
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  Speaker 1: to distant relatives. It doesn't operate like a simple fingerprint
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  Speaker 1: that immediately produces one unquestionable name. Instead, investigators build family trees,
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  Speaker 1: examine relationships, and narrow a pool of possible individuals. Defense
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  Speaker 1: attorneys therefore question how the genealogy work had been performed
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  Speaker 1: and whether investigators had followed legal and scientific safeguards. They
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  Speaker 1: also sought information about databases, searches, analysts, and records used
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  Speaker 1: during the process. Prosecutors responded that the genealogy had generated
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  Speaker 1: an investigative lead rather than evidence they necessarily intended to
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  Speaker 1: present to a jury. Once Colberger became a suspect, they
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  Speaker 1: argued a direct comparison link to his own DNA to
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  Speaker 1: the sheath sample. The dispute mattered because the defense believed
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  Speaker 1: the genealogy could reveal flaws or unconstitutional conduct underlying the investigation.
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  Speaker 1: The state maintained that the direct DNA comparison stood independently
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  Speaker 1: of the earlier genealogical work. The DNA evidence gave the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: prosecution a powerful argument, but it did not eliminate every
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  Speaker 1: question surrounding the case. A small biological sample could be
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  Speaker 1: challenged on collection, contamination, transfer, interpretation, and statistical presentation. Defense
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: attorneys were expected to examine how the sheath had been
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  Speaker 1: handled from the moment it was discovered. They could also
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  Speaker 1: explore whether Coburger had ever touched the sheath under circumstances
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  Speaker 1: unrelated to the murders. Prosecutors would have answered that the
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  Speaker 1: object was found beside a victim inside a home, Coburger
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  Speaker 1: had no innocent reason to enter context. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: transformed the DNA from an isolated laboratory result into evidence
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  Speaker 1: tied directly to the crime scene. The defense still had
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the right to test every link in that chain. That
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  Speaker 1: right was essential because even compelling forensic evidence had to
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  Speaker 1: survive adversarial scrutiny. The case would not have been decided
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  Speaker 1: by the emotional force of the allegation alone, It would
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  Speaker 1: have been decided by whether the state proved that the DNA,
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  Speaker 1: the sheath, and the surrounding circumstances pointed reliably to Coburger.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, folks, we're gonna wrap up episode one right there,
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  Speaker 1: and in the next episode dealing with the topic, we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna pick up where we left off. All the information
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that goes with this episode can be found in the
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  Speaker 1: description box.