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Murder In Moscow: Bryan Kohberger And The Family Tree That Led Investigators To Him · Beyond The Horizon

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. We
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  Speaker 1: know from the affidavit that the FBI and the Moscow
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  Speaker 1: Police Department used genealogy to capture Brian Kohlberger. And they
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  Speaker 1: did that by entering the DNA they found on that
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  Speaker 1: knife sheath into public genealogy databases, and those came back
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  Speaker 1: with a hit on Brian Kohlberger's pops. And then using
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  Speaker 1: all of that information weaved together with everything else that
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  Speaker 1: they have found and everything else that they came up with,
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  Speaker 1: they were able to get a probable cause warrant signed
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  Speaker 1: by a judge. And a lot of that had to do, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: with the results that came back from the genealogy. If
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't for that knife sheath that was there, they
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  Speaker 1: would have had no idea who did this. At least
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  Speaker 1: not that we know of. Again, we don't know what
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  Speaker 1: results they have behind the scenes. But as far as
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  Speaker 1: for public consumption, there's no way without that knife sheath
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  Speaker 1: that they would have had a strong enough case for
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  Speaker 1: a judge to sign off on probable cause because there
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough there, right? All of that stuff that we
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  Speaker 1: have as far as him being there a whole bunch
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  Speaker 1: of times previously, that can be explained away by his
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  Speaker 1: defense team saying, oh, Brian Koberger was over there because
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  Speaker 1: maybe he wanted to move into a house in the
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood or insert reason here. But what you can explain
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  Speaker 1: away is the DNA on that knife and not an
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  Speaker 1: explanation that anyone's going to buy anyway. Now, if you
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  Speaker 1: want to be contrarian and play devil's advocate, you can
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  Speaker 1: say that Brian Koberger was over there for a party
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  Speaker 1: and that's how his DNA got on that sheath. But
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  Speaker 1: always remember, you can say whatever you want. You can
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  Speaker 1: come up with whatever excuse you want to come up
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  Speaker 1: with to explain away your behavior. But you're going to
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  Speaker 1: need evidence to back that up. No jury is just
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  Speaker 1: going to take your word for it. If that was
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  Speaker 1: the case, why even have the trial? You just walk
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  Speaker 1: in there and tell the jurors that this is all BS.
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  Speaker 1: I'm out of here. You guys have a great week.
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  Speaker 1: But that's not how it works. You have to back
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  Speaker 1: up what you say in that courtroom. And big accusations, well,
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  Speaker 1: they require big evidence. And for the prosecution, it all
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  Speaker 1: started with this genealogy. So let's get into this article
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  Speaker 1: from WPBF.com down in West Palm Beach in Florida, and
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  Speaker 1: let's see what they came up with about the genealogy
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  Speaker 1: tests and capturing Brian Koberger. Headline, how a family tree
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  Speaker 1: and DNA identified Idaho murder suspect Brian Koberger. Detectives sent
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  Speaker 1: DNA to a private lab in one of the first
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  Speaker 1: cases of using genealogy to solve A hot case. This
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  Speaker 1: article was authored by Terry Parker. And usually when they're
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  Speaker 1: using this genealogy the way they used it in this instance,
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  Speaker 1: they're usually doing that to solve a cold case. So
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  Speaker 1: like the headline says here, the first time that they're
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  Speaker 1: using a genealogy or one of the first times to
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  Speaker 1: help solve a case that is active and hot. And
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  Speaker 1: as the technology continues to advance, I would expect to
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  Speaker 1: see more of it pop up for cases like this
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  Speaker 1: that are currently active and being investigated. When Moscow, Idaho
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  Speaker 1: detectives entered the horrifying crime scene where four university students
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  Speaker 1: were found mysteriously stabbed to death on November 13th, they
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  Speaker 1: discovered a major clue, a K-bar knife sheath lying on
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  Speaker 1: the bed next to one of the bodies. But the
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  Speaker 1: DNA they found on that sheath led them nowhere at first.
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  Speaker 1: So if you don't have any priors and you haven't
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  Speaker 1: had your DNA put into the system, as in being
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  Speaker 1: arrested or something like that, well, it's not going to
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  Speaker 1: pop hot when they run it in CODIS. And CODIS
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  Speaker 1: is the system that they use to see if it's
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  Speaker 1: somebody who has been registered before. That way they can
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  Speaker 1: narrow down their subjects. All right, so let's run this DNA.
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  Speaker 1: And if it comes back as somebody in the database... Well,
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  Speaker 1: that'll be the person we need to go get. But
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  Speaker 1: Brian Koberger obviously had no criminal record in the past,
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  Speaker 1: so he wasn't somebody that was in CODIS. Instead, they
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  Speaker 1: were at a loss. They didn't know what to do.
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  Speaker 1: They had the DNA, but it wasn't leading them anywhere
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  Speaker 1: at that time. So, whose DNA was it? That's when
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  Speaker 1: investigators came up with a novel idea that, up until now,
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  Speaker 1: was typically used in cold cases. They sent the DNA
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  Speaker 1: to a private lab to see if they could find
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  Speaker 1: a match on a public ancestry database. And it worked.
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  Speaker 1: Genetic genealogy was crucial in identifying the defendant in the
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  Speaker 1: Idaho murder case, said Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Ehrenberg.
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  Speaker 1: So this dude ended up getting caught because somebody in
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  Speaker 1: his family, his dad, his sister or whatever, they did
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  Speaker 1: one of these genealogical charts. And here you go. It
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  Speaker 1: ended up coming back popping hot. And that DNA that
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  Speaker 1: was left on that knife sheath, well, it ended up
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  Speaker 1: leading them straight to Brian Koberger. And him being a criminologist,
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  Speaker 1: he had to know that he wasn't in CODIS, right?
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  Speaker 1: And that his DNA would be unknown. But he didn't
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  Speaker 1: expect this curveball. He didn't expect them to use something
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  Speaker 1: like Ancestry.com or one of these public databases that they used.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm guessing he didn't expect to leave that nice
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  Speaker 1: sheath at the scene of the crime. According to a
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  Speaker 1: source close to the investigation, the private lab entered the
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  Speaker 1: DNA into a public Ancestry database and within days, cousin
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  Speaker 1: matches were showing up. Genealogists then start the tree with
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  Speaker 1: the closest cousin they can. We use tools such as Ancestry.com
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  Speaker 1: to help build those trees. So once you get this
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  Speaker 1: individual's name, you can start building their family tree. And
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of public records, said forensic scientist Julie
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  Speaker 1: Sikorski of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. They should
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  Speaker 1: have used some of those forensics to arrest Jeffrey Epstein.
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  Speaker 1: I guess that's a story for a different time, huh? Meantime,
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  Speaker 1: detectives were still looking for other clues, and they got
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  Speaker 1: a big one. Surveillance cameras caught a white Hyundai Elantra
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  Speaker 1: driving around the crime scene at the time of the murders.
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  Speaker 1: On November 25th, police asked other law enforcement to be
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  Speaker 1: on the lookout for white Elantras. And four days later,
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  Speaker 1: Washington State University police say they found at least one
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  Speaker 1: registered to Brian Koberger. And that was the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: the end for Koberger. You had the car. You had
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  Speaker 1: the genealogy. And those are two gigantic mistakes that are
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  Speaker 1: definitely going to lead back to you. And once they
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  Speaker 1: get a whiff of who you are, forget it. They're
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  Speaker 1: going to pull that curtain back and they're going to
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  Speaker 1: expose your whole ass life. And that's what's happening to
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  Speaker 1: Brian Koberger right now as we speak. We might not
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  Speaker 1: be seeing it publicly, but behind the scenes, forget it.
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  Speaker 1: They're dissecting this guy's whole entire life. Every move that
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  Speaker 1: he ever made that's ever been documented is being dissected.
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  Speaker 1: But did that mean anything to the police at the time?
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  Speaker 1: Apparently not, because police made a public plea for information
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  Speaker 1: about white Elantras on December 7th. They began sorting through
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  Speaker 1: over 22,000 registered Elantras. It was the proverbial needle in
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  Speaker 1: a haystack. And that's where genetic genealogy became so crucial.
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  Speaker 1: A source says within days, the lab handed over the
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  Speaker 1: tree leading to the Kohlberger family and their only son, Brian,
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  Speaker 1: who drives a white Elantra. And now you find out
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  Speaker 1: that he's living less than 10 miles away? You've got
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  Speaker 1: a prime suspect, said retired FBI agent John McVeigh 100%.
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  Speaker 1: When all of that starts to add up, and then,
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  Speaker 1: once you're onto his scent, you start to pull that
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  Speaker 1: skin back and peel each one of those layers back
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  Speaker 1: like an onion, and things start to really fall in place.
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  Speaker 1: Detectives got search warrants for Koberger's phone and started tracking him.
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  Speaker 1: He drove home to Pennsylvania with his father for Christmas,
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  Speaker 1: and agents retrieved some of the family's trash. They ran
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  Speaker 1: DNA on it and find Koberger's father, Michael, is likely
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  Speaker 1: to be the father of whoever left the DNA on
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  Speaker 1: the knife sheath. They arrest Brian Koberger the next day.
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  Speaker 1: Now with such a high-profile case, I think that police
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  Speaker 1: departments all across the country are going to want to
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  Speaker 1: try and follow the lead in Idaho because it's incredibly powerful,
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  Speaker 1: said Ehrenberg. And law enforcement, like any other profession, is
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  Speaker 1: a monkey-see, monkey-do kind of business. If something works, the
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  Speaker 1: other departments, other agents, and other facilities are going to
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  Speaker 1: implement the things that worked to try and give them
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  Speaker 1: a better chance at clearing these homicides and solving some
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  Speaker 1: of these crimes. Rapid results in a baffling case that
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  Speaker 1: could have taken months to solve or even gone cold.
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  Speaker 1: McVeigh says this tool could change crime solving forever and
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  Speaker 1: should have a chilling effect on criminals. Because you never
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  Speaker 1: know when they're going to knock on your door and say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we got a match, said McVeigh. You might wonder why
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  Speaker 1: there is no mention of genetic genealogy in the probable
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  Speaker 1: cause arrest affidavit. Well, that's for two reasons. One, police
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  Speaker 1: don't need to include every lead they get that brings
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  Speaker 1: them to their suspect. Just enough to convince a judge
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  Speaker 1: to sign the arrest warrant. Number two. law enforcement has
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  Speaker 1: been divided on whether revealing this information might lead to
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  Speaker 1: people being reluctant to sign up for ancestry databases if
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  Speaker 1: they think it might be used to solve criminal cases.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, only two public genealogy databases allow law enforcement
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  Speaker 1: to use their data to And in one of them,
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  Speaker 1: you have to consent to your DNA being used by police.
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  Speaker 1: But some experts say people already have so much personal
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  Speaker 1: information online and so many used ancestry kits that it's
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  Speaker 1: becoming a lesser concern. Ehrenberg agrees. Many people don't care
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  Speaker 1: if their DNA eventually helps find and convict a distantly
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  Speaker 1: related killer. I mean, I wouldn't. If they use my
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  Speaker 1: DNA and it was in a system to catch some
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  Speaker 1: distant relative of mine who's out there murdering people or
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  Speaker 1: causing mayhem, good, lock them up. I'm a big believer
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  Speaker 1: in play stupid games and you win stupid prizes. So
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  Speaker 1: don't come crying to me if my DNA is used
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  Speaker 1: to track you down if you're out here killing people
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  Speaker 1: and causing all kinds of mayhem. All right, folks, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's going to do it for this episode. And it's
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  Speaker 1: always interesting to get some more context on that genealogy
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  Speaker 1: and the forensics, because most of us don't know a
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  Speaker 1: lot about that stuff, right? We know what we see
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  Speaker 1: on TV or what we might have read. So anytime
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  Speaker 1: we can get an expert to weigh in on that,
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  Speaker 1: it's always something that I like to add to the catalog.
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  Speaker 1: All right, folks, that's going to do it for me.
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  Speaker 1: All of the information that goes with this episode, well,
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  Speaker 1: that can be found in the description box.