Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Accused University of Idaho Killer Searched for Ted Bundy, and Pornography, Around Time of Slayings

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Accused University of Idaho Killer Searched for Ted Bundy, and Pornography, Around Time of Slayings · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. On November thirteen, twenty twenty two,
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  the small, quiet college town of Moscow, Idaho, really saw
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  its its sense of safety just shattered. For University of
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  Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogan, and Kayleie
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  Gonkabs were murdered in a single incredibly brutal night.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a tragedy that just it gripped the
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  nation almost immediately. It turned this small town homicide case
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  into this huge, complex hunt for a killer.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And our mission today for you is really to
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  move past those initial headlines, you know, the white car,
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  the DNA, the things we first heard about. We're going
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  deep into the case against the accused, Brian Koberger, and
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  we're focusing almost entirely on the insights from a pretty
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  recent investigative report. It analyzed the deepest parts of his
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  digital life.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking his phone data, his iCloud account, those late
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  night searches he probably thought would stay private, Exactly.
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  Speaker 1: We're pulling out the most crucial bits here, detailing these
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  specific searches he made for the serial killer Ted Bunny,
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  and even more disturbing, some explicit searches related to well
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  non consensual acts.
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  Speaker 2: And these aren't just like random details, They're these dark
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  breadcrumbs that have become absolutely central to how the prosecution
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  is building its case, which.
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  Speaker 1: Brings us to the core tension. The big question we
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  need to explore for you, are these digital footprints? You know,
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  are they damning evidence, proof of premeditation, maybe even a
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  developing killer persona or and this is.
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  Speaker 2: What the defense has to argue. Are they just unfortunate artifacts,
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  you know, the kind of morbid research notes you might
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  expect from a PhD criminology student, someone just exploring dark
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  curiosity is late at night.
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  Speaker 1: That's the line we're walking today. Yeah, so let's unpack this.
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  Let's start with setting the scene, remembering the context that
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  was just ripped apart that morning.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's absolutely essential where we ground this
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  whole discussion and just the immense human loss. First, we're
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  talking about four young people, four lives just violently extinguished.
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  Speaker 1: It's important to remember who they were. Ethan Chapin, he
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  was twenty a freshman involved in fraternity life. He was
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  actually visiting his girlfriend, Xanna Kernodle that.
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  Speaker 2: Night, and Xana also twenty a communications major people described
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  her as just deeply loyal to her friends and family.
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  Speaker 1: And then upstairs in the house were Madison Mogan and
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  Kayleie Gonkavs, both twenty one. They'd been best friends, like
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  inseparable since sixth grade.
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  Speaker 2: Just think about that bond. Madison was studying marketing, had
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  big dreams. Kaylee was more the adventurer, apparently had plans
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  to move to Texas, had even recently adopted two dogs
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  with her fiance.
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  Speaker 1: They really represented you know, that vibrant, hopeful energy you
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  find on.
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  Speaker 2: College campus, and all of that life was attacked in
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  this incredibly short, terrifying window of time. The coroner eventually
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  placed the attack between four am and four two five am,
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  just twenty five minutes.
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  Speaker 1: And this was in a three seedtory house off campus
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  on King Road. There were six people living there, right,
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  the four victims plus two surviving roommates who were in
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  their own bedrooms and in credibly weren't physically harmed.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And the descriptions of the attack itself, the source
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  material uses these two words frenzied and intimate.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's break that down. Frenzied suggests what uncontrolled rage
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  maybe a rush of adrenaline, not calculated.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, or maybe even some panic while intimate that points
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  to close up violence. We know the victims had deep
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  wounds chest and neck. It suggests a personal level of violence,
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  not like a distant professional hit.
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  Speaker 1: That seems like a really crucial distinction for you know,
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  trying to understand the psychology here.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, a cold professional killing often involves minimal, precise wounds. Right,
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  it sounds like overkill. It's just intense emotion or maybe
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  a profound need for power and control. That theme of
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  power it's going to echo later when we get into
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  Coberger's digital searches.
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  Speaker 1: And the discovery itself. Yeah, it didn't happen until noon
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  the next day.
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  Speaker 2: No friends came over supposedly for a study session, found
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  the scene, and then that frantic nine to one one
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  call went out, and that call launched in investigation that
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  frankly immediately overwhelmed the local police.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Moscow's a small town, what population around twenty five thousand.
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  They just weren't equipped for something this savage, especially with
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  the national media descending almost instantly.
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  Speaker 2: Right, the Layta County Sheriff's office had to bring in
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  the Idaho State Police. The FBI. It became a massive
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  operation very quickly.
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  Speaker 1: And initially there were very few leads, which must have
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  created just immense fear in the community.
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  Speaker 2: Total paranoia. Students were leaving campus. Police couldn't find signs
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  of forced entry at first, which made it even scarier.
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  Was it someone they knew or was it some incredibly
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  skilled intruder who could get in and out without breaking anything.
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  Both possibilities were terrifying.
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  Speaker 1: And the weapon that added another layer of speculation early on, didn't.
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  Speaker 2: It it did. Investigators determined it was likely a ka
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  bar style knife. Now to most people that might just
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  sound like a big knife.
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  Speaker 1: But it's specific, right, It's very specific.
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  Speaker 2: A ka bar is a fixed blade combat knife. It's
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  often associated with the million terry with survival training. It
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  suggests the attacker chose a particular kind of rugged, heavy
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  duty tool meant for causing significant damage.
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  Speaker 1: So it felt deliberate, professional almost That's.
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  Speaker 2: How it seemed. Initially. It felt chillingly familiar, kind of
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  like something out of you know, decades of true crime stories.
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  It immediately fueled those whispers about a possible serial killer.
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  Speaker 1: But the weapon wasn't the big break. The break came
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  from surveillance footage, right.
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  Speaker 2: A tiny flicker on a camera somewhere, a white Hyundai Elantra.
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  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just seen once, No, that's the key.
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  Speaker 2: It was captured circling the block where the King Road
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  house was located. Over and over again, the report says
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  twelve times in the hours leading up to the murders.
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  Speaker 1: Twelve times that's that's not someone looking for parking.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, that pattern screams reconnaissance staging. It immediately pushed the
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  investigation towards premeditation, not some random act of passion.
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  Speaker 1: And that white Alandra became the thread that investigators pulled,
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  and it eventually led them across State Life just about
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  ten miles away to Pullman, Washington, and.
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  Speaker 2: To a PhD student studying criminology.
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  Speaker 1: So the car was the physical link, but the man
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  eventually connected to that car. Brian Cooberger his profiles where
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  this case takes a really unexpected, almost bizarre turn. He
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  wasn't just some random person. He was immersed in the
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  academic study of the very thing he's accused of doing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, his background is this strange mix. Academically, he seems
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  to have excelled, brilliant got his BA then his master's degree,
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  but socially reports describe him as awkward, brooding, intense.
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  Speaker 1: And his master's thesis from the Sales University.
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  Speaker 2: The topic itself is chilling now right.
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  Speaker 1: It focused on decision patterns and violent crime, how offenders think,
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  how they make choices during the act. It's unsettlingly relevant.
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  Speaker 2: So academically brilliant, but maybe struggled to connect.
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  Speaker 1: With people, that seems to be the picture. Friends or
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  former acquaintances described him as intense, very rigid in his
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  routines like extreme veganism, committed body building, almost like he
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  was observing the social world from the outside, never quite
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  fitting in.
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  Speaker 2: And then in the fall of twenty twenty two, he
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  moves to Pullman, Washington to start his PhD at Washington
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  State University, which is.
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  Speaker 1: As you said, barely a fifteen minute drive from the
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  King Road House in Moscow, Idaho, just across the state line.
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  Speaker 2: And he wasn't just a student there, he was a
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  teaching assistant, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: A TA in criminology, guiding undergrads through the basics of
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  criminal behavior. Some reports mentioned his students found his lectures
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  while engaging, yet eerie, like he knew the subject a
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  little too well.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so the Landra gets traced to him, and the
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  investigation culminates in this really dramatic arrest December thirtieth, twenty
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  twenty two. Right, he'd actually driven that launcher a cross
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  country back to his parents' house in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania for
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  the winter break.
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  Speaker 1: And the arrest wasn't just a couple of officers knocking
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  on the door.
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  Speaker 2: No, it was a full swat team operation surrounded the
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  house at three am. That kind of tactical response tells
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  you how seriously law enforcement viewed the evidence they'd gathered
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  by that point, even before they brought them back to Idaho.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's quickly recap that initial evidence, the stuff
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  prosecutors used to establish probable cause, because this physical evidence
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  is really the foundation, right, and the digital trail kind
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  of builds on.
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  Speaker 2: Top of it definitely. So first, you've got the car,
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  that white twenty fifteen Hyundai Lantra matching the surveillance footage
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  near the crime scene. Check in for two, the cell
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  tower pings, and this is important, it wasn't just that
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  his phone was somewhere near Moscow. The data allegedly showed
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  his phone connecting to cell towers near the King Road
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  address more than a dozen times in the months before
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  the murders.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, hold on. The defense often pushes back on cell
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  tower data right saying it's not precise. It just puts
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  you in a general area, maybe a mile radius. Why
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  are prosecutors so confident about these pings showing reconnaissance.
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  Speaker 2: That's a fair point, and the defense absolutely will challenge it.
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  But here it's about the pattern. It's not one random ping,
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  It's a sequence of pings repeatedly placing his phone near
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  that specific house, often during late night hours, over weeks
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  and months.
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  Speaker 1: So it stops looking like coincidence and starts looking.
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  Speaker 2: Like a habit like de luberate surveillance. And crucially, there's
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  the flip side. On the night of the murders itself,
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  his phone apparently stopped pinging the tower closest to King
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  Road about one hundred meters.
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  Speaker 1: Away, meaning it was likely turned off, turned off.
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  Speaker 2: Or maybe put an airplane mode or even theoretically inside
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  something like a Faraday bag to block signals. That act
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  of intentionally going dark right around the time of the crime.
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  That strengthens the premeditation argument significantly. It's just awareness planning,
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  trying to cover his tracks.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, car pings. What was the third major.
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  Speaker 2: Piece the DNA? This was the big one. Early on,
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  a trace amount of male DNA was found on the
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  button snap of a brown leather.
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  Speaker 1: Knife sheath left at the scene.
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  Speaker 2: Left to the scene, reportedly near one of the victims.
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  Investigators used investigative genetic geniulogy, basically matching the crime scene
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  DNA to relatives in public databases, which pointed them towards Coburger.
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  Speaker 1: And they confirmed it how.
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  Speaker 2: They surreptitiously collected trash from his parents' home in Pennsylvania,
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  got his DNA from that, and it was a match
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  to the DNA on the sheath. That's the direct physical
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  link him to that sheath in that house.
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  Speaker 1: And wasn't there also an eyewitness account.
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  Speaker 2: Yes from one of the surviving roommates. She reported waking up,
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  hearing sounds, opening her door, and seeing a figure described
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  as dressed in black wearing a mask, but she noted
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  bushy eyebrows, and this figure walked past her door and
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  towards the back exit of the house. Around the time
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  the murders were believed to have concluded.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, so even that initial batch of evidence car Ping's
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  DNA eyewitness it seems incredibly strong.
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  Speaker 2: It was certainly enough for probable cause, and the arrest Coburger,
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  though seemed composed. He agreed to be extradited back to
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  Idaho quickly. Reports said he expected to be.
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  Speaker 1: Exonerated, and he pleaded not guilty.
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  Speaker 2: The judge entered not guilty please on his behalf to
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  four counts of first degree murder and one count of
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  burglary back in May twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: And since then he's been in jail, and there have
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  been these sort of snippets about his behavior. Losing weight
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  reading true crime.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, reports mentioned he lost a significant amount of weight,
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  was devouring true crime books, which, given the circumstances, is
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  pretty meta, and apparently writing philosophical notes maybe about free
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  will versus determinism, stuff like that.
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  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, his defense team, led by Ann Taylor, they've been
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  fighting everything.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're arguing potential DNA contamination, challenging the cell
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  tower data's reliability, questioning the chain of custody for the evidence.
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  Their job is to poke holes in every single piece
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  of the prosecution's case.
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  Speaker 1: But now they've got this whole other front to fight
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  on this deep dive into his digital world, his mind
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  really exposed by his own devices, right.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where that May twenty twenty five Dateline
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  report really shifted the focus. It wasn't just about the
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  physical evidence anymore. It was about the FBI. There's analysis
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  of Coburger's phone, his iCloud data, and what they found
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  was this intense, repeated focus on Ted Bundy.
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  Speaker 1: Ted Bundy, the name itself carries so much weight in
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  true crime history, and it wasn't just a passing interest. Not.
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  Speaker 2: According to the report, investigators found multiple searches for Bundy
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  related content. We're talking videos, documentaries, articles, and critically, these
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  searches happened both before and after the murders on November thirteenth.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so the FBI's Behavioral Analysis unit must have flagged
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  that immediately.
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  Speaker 2: Bundy is sort of the archetype, right, the campus killed exactly,
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  the intelligent often described as charismatic predator who targets college students.
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  The parallels are obvious and disturbing, and.
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  Speaker 1: The report got specific about the searches.
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  Speaker 2: Very specific. It highlighted that Coburger allegedly searched for Ted
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  Bundy methods in late October twenty twenty two.
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  Speaker 1: Late October. Now, let's connect the dots. You said, the
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  cell tower data showed his reconnaissance drives near the King
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  Road house picked up around.
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  Speaker 2: Then, precisely when you sync up the timeline searching for
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  Bundy's methods at the same time, the pings suggest he's
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  physically serving the target location. Well, the defense argument that oh,
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  he's just a criminology student doing research starts to feel
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  a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Weaker because Bundy's methods often involve deception, gaining entry, targeting
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  sorority houses or apartments.
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  Speaker 2: Right his infamous attack on the Chiomega sorority house at
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  Florida State University, it involved a nighttime intrusion attacks on
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  sleeping women using blunt force and strangulation, but also an
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  edged weapon component. In some cases. The parallels to a
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  PhD student just miles from the University of Idaho campus
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  accused of a nighttime intrusion with a knife they're hard
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  to ignore. Both men seem to use this veneer of
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  normalcy Bundy as a law student, Coburger is a PhD
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  candidate to potentially mask extreme violence.
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  Speaker 1: But the counter argument is still there, right, criminology students
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  do study serial killers. Is probably required reading, isn't he.
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  Speaker 2: That's the crux of the legal fight and the psychological
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  debate too. The source materials quoted doctor Katherine Ramslin, a
• 14:07
  well known forensic psychologist.
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  Speaker 1: What did she say?
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  Speaker 2: She basically said, yeah, criminology students study killers. It's curriculum.
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  And remember Coburger's master's thesis on a Fender decision making,
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  so academically it's plausible he'd be studying Bundy maybe the
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  most famous example of that kind of calculated, high function
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  and killer.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so plausibility exists. But then the report highlighted something else,
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  something more than just reading articles, something visual, almost yeah, performative.
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  Speaker 2: This is where it gets really eerie and potentially very
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  damaging for the defense. Post murder, Coberger allegedly searched for
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  and watched a specific YouTube clip of Ted Bundy appearing
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  in court. In the clip, Bundy is wearing a very
• 14:48
  distinct black, hooded sweatshirt. Okay, Then investigators found a selfie
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  on Coburger's phone, taken on December twenty eighth, twenty twenty two,
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  just two days before his arrest. In the selfie, Coberger
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  is looking at mirror, wearing what appears to be an
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  identical black hoodie. His expression is described as intense, staring
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  right into the camera.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, that feels different than research. Why take that selfie?
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  Why mimic the clothing exactly?
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  Speaker 2: It suggests something beyond academic curiosity. It leans towards identification,
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  maybe even emulation, like he's trying on the persona documenting
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  some kind of internal shift, or rehearsing a role he
• 15:23
  wants to embody. It feels like a dark tribute.
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  Speaker 1: A digital confirmation of what profilers call the offender's fantasy
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  life becoming real.
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  Speaker 2: That's likely how the prosecution will frame it. And there's more.
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  He also reportedly bookmarked articles discussing Bundie's escalation hypothesis. Of fact,
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  it's the theory that offenders often start with minor crimes
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  or voyeurism or fantasies, and these gradually escalate over time,
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  building momentum towards more serious violence, culminating in homicide.
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  Speaker 1: So Coberger was studying that hypothesis, understanding that trajectory.
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  Speaker 2: And yet allegedly still carried out the murders. Just a
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  conscious decision, maybe even a deliberate surrender to those darker
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  impulses he was researching, not just studying deviants, but potentially
• 16:07
  embracing it.
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  Speaker 1: And did this academic interest, this Bundy fixation, spill over
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  into his real world interactions at all?
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  Speaker 2: Apparently yes. The source mentioned an account from a former
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  classmate from his master's program at the Sales, a woman
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  identified as Holly.
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  Speaker 1: What happened?
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  Speaker 2: She described getting these peculiar text messages from him back
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  in July twenty twenty two, after they'd both been at
• 16:30
  a pool party. He wasn't making small talk. He was
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  asking her, really probing questions, like what were her biggest fears?
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  What truly scared her?
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  Speaker 1: That's unsettling, not typical post party chat, not at all.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like an attempt to gauge vulnerabilities, maybe understand
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  how fear works in others, which again can be seen
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  as a kind of preparatory behavior for certain types of predators.
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  It suggests his academic interest was already manifesting in creepy
• 16:56
  interpersonal ways.
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  Speaker 1: And there was also that weird connection to his own
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  mother's writing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this surface after his arrest. Apparently, back in nineteen
• 17:05
  ninety nine, his mother had written an op ed for
• 17:07
  a local paper about a different murder case in their
• 17:10
  hometown area, one that had some Bundy like elements.
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  Speaker 1: That creates this strange loop, doesn't it did that early
• 17:15
  exposure maybe influence his interest in criminology. Was he drawn
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  to it subconsciously?
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  Speaker 2: It's impossible to know for sure, but it adds another layer.
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  But really it's the sheer volume of the Bundy searches,
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  the specific timing matching, the alleged reconnaissance, and that performative selfie.
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  The prosecution's argument is clear, this wasn't just study, it
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  was a blueprint. It was intellectual premeditation turning into action.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So if the Bundy searches suggest a fixation on
• 17:43
  the how the methods of committing violent crime, this next
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  set of digital evidence seems to get into the much
• 17:49
  darker territory of why why these victims? Perhaps why this
• 17:53
  method we're talking about the searches investigators found related to
• 17:56
  pornography specifically flagged as involving non consensual act.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is probably the most disturbing part of the
• 18:03
  digital evidence, but it's absolutely crucial for understanding the potential
• 18:07
  psychological drivers. The specific search terms reported are deeply troubling,
• 18:11
  whords like forced, passed out, drugged, and significantly sleeping.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Those aren't just generic porn terms. They point to a
• 18:18
  very specific niche interest, often related to concepts like dub
• 18:21
  con dubious consent, where the focus is on the victim's incapacitation.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Right, the lack of consciousness, the lack of ability to resist,
• 18:29
  That seems to be the focus. And again the timing
• 18:31
  is critical here. The report states these specific searches occurred
• 18:35
  in late October and early December twenty twenty two, so right.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Before the murders, during that period of alleged increase reconnaissance. Yeah,
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  and then again after the murders.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly they bookended the slayings. As the source put it,
• 18:49
  this pattern strongly suggests fantasy rehearsal before the act and
• 18:53
  then perhaps reinforcement review or even reliving it afterwards.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: And the connection to how the crime actually happened. It's
• 19:00
  pretty direct.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Isn't it Chillingly direct? The victims were attacked in their
• 19:04
  beds and their home, likely while they were asleep or
• 19:06
  just waking up. They were vulnerable, incapacitated.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: So if an offender is specifically searching for and fantasizing
• 19:13
  about scenarios involving incapacitated, sleeping, or non consenting individuals.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It provides a stark psychological alignment with the known facts
• 19:21
  of the crime scene. It helps answer the why this
• 19:25
  way question?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: How does that fit? Into criminal profiling term?
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It strongly aligns with what profilers call a power assertive offender.
• 19:32
  This type of offender isn't usually looking for a fight
• 19:35
  or confrontation. They seek absolute control, domination, violation. The satisfaction
• 19:41
  comes from the complete subjugation of the victim, not just
• 19:44
  the act of killing itself, and.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The digital trail becomes proof of that desire.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Essentially.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Doctor Michael Aarntfield, a criminologist quoted in the Sources, made
• 19:53
  the point that these digital trails are like the modern confessional.
• 19:57
  In the past, maybe investigators would find a diary. Today
• 20:00
  they find search histories, and those searches often mirror the
• 20:04
  fantasies that precede the violent actions.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just the Bundy searches and the non consensual
• 20:09
  poor There was other stuff in his search history too, right,
• 20:12
  things pointing towards self awareness.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, The forensic analysis uncovered a broader pattern, things
• 20:17
  like searching for sociopathic traits in college student back in
• 20:20
  September twenty twenty two. Okay, that's direct, and then can
• 20:23
  psychopaths behave pro socially? In mid October twenty twenty two, So.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: On one hand, he's studying Bundy's methods. On the other,
• 20:32
  he seems to be looking inward, maybe asking questions about himself.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: It certainly looks that way. Is he wondering if he
• 20:38
  fits the profile? Is he trying to figure out if
• 20:40
  he can blend in act normally, maybe even fool people
• 20:43
  while holding these darker thoughts or traits. Doing this right
• 20:47
  before the alleged planning ramps up. It's incredibly suggestive.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And what about after the murders?
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: The digital activity continued. He reportedly googled University of Idaho murders, which, okay,
• 20:58
  may be understandable given the proximity in his field of study,
• 21:02
  but combined with other things like streaming the Britney Spear
• 21:06
  song Criminal, that feels less like academic research and more
• 21:09
  like identification or maybe reveling in it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the defense would argue anyone in town might google
• 21:15
  the murders, but the song choice adds a different flavor.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: It supports the narrative that he wasn't just a detached observer,
• 21:21
  but someone.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And then there's the element of surveillance going beyond just searches.
• 21:26
  The saved images.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Right investigators reportedly found saved images of over fifty women
• 21:31
  from local campuses on his devices. Many were in swimsuits,
• 21:35
  and crucially, some were friends of the victims.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: That's not just colleking pictures. That sounds like targeted interest,
• 21:42
  stalking behavior almost It.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Certainly leans that way, especially when you add the detail
• 21:47
  that some images were apparently geotagged to specific locations like parties.
• 21:51
  There was one specific example in the source material, a
• 21:54
  pool party on July ninth, twenty twenty two. Coberger apparently
• 21:58
  declined the invitation but then up anyway uninvited, and photos
• 22:02
  from that party, including women in Madison Mogan's social circle,
• 22:05
  were allegedly found on his devices.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, that detail is significant. It links the digital collection
• 22:11
  to physical presence, even if unwelcome. It shows he might
• 22:15
  have been tracking the social lives in the victims circle.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: It paints a picture of focused intent targeting, maybe a
• 22:21
  kind of obsessive interest what some might call erotomania, but
• 22:25
  focused on accessing and perhaps violating the private spaces and
• 22:29
  social circles of these women digitally and maybe planning to physically.
• 22:33
  It undermines any argument of randomness.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And one last piece on the digital front, he knew
• 22:38
  how to cover his tracks.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Online, right, That's a key point. The source confirms he
• 22:43
  used a VPN, a virtual private network, for at least
• 22:45
  some of his Internet.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Activity, and a VPN basically hides your real location. Your
• 22:50
  IP address makes your online activity harder to trace exactly.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So, if you're just doing innocent PhD research on Ted Bundy,
• 22:58
  why are you using a tools specifically designed to obscure
• 23:01
  your digital footprint?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It suggests he knew what he was doing was potentially intriminating.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: It strongly suggests awareness and intent. He wasn't just accidentally
• 23:09
  stumbling across dark corners of the Internet. He studied forensic investigation.
• 23:14
  He likely understood digital trails. Using a VPN looks like
• 23:17
  a deliberate act of concealment.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So when you layer that on top of the Bundy stuff,
• 23:22
  the non consensual searches, the self diagnosis queries.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: The prosecution's argument becomes this is a picture of someone
• 23:29
  methodically planning, psychologically preparing, and actively trying to hide their actions.
• 23:34
  It makes the just research defense look much much harder
• 23:38
  to believe.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So with all this digital evidence now out there, largely
• 23:42
  thanks to that dateline report, the trial itself it's set
• 23:45
  for August eleventh, twenty twenty five. Right, Okay, this is
• 23:48
  going to be.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Massive, absolutely huge, one of the most watched murder trials
• 23:53
  in years, almost certainly, And the fact that they already
• 23:56
  had to move the trial venue tells you something about
• 23:58
  the media saturation.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Right. Moved out of Moscow Leida County because of all
• 24:02
  the pre trial publicity.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the defense successfully argued they couldn't get a fair
• 24:06
  trial there, so it's been moved to Ada County, which
• 24:08
  is where Boise is located. They're hoping for a less
• 24:11
  biased jury pool, but honestly, with this much national attention, finding.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Jurors who haven't heard anything seems impossible, and the stakes
• 24:18
  are incredibly high. We're talking the death penalty is on
• 24:21
  the table, that's correct.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Judge Stephen Hipler ruled that the case is eligible for
• 24:25
  the death penalty in Idaho. That means lethal injection or
• 24:29
  potentially the firing squad, which they brought back as an option.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So legally, what's the immediate fight going to be about
• 24:37
  in court regarding all this digital stuff admissibility.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: The defense and Taylor's team, their primary goal right now
• 24:44
  has to be trying to get this entire digital search
• 24:47
  history thrown.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Out suppressed on what grounds.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: They'll likely argue the search warrants used to get the
• 24:53
  data were too broad and overreach. They'll argue the searches
• 24:57
  themselves are irrelevant to the actual crime, that thoughts aren't actions.
• 25:01
  They'll say it's prejudicial, inflammatory, and you know, college guys
• 25:04
  look at weird stuff online, basically trying to normalize it
• 25:07
  or dismiss it as unrelated dark curiosity, trying to break.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: The link between the digital world and the physical crime.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly decouple the searches from the killings.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: But the prosecution has a strategy for that. Right this
• 25:19
  mosaic theory. We hear that ternal law, What does it
• 25:21
  mean here?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: The mosaic theory is basically the idea that individual pieces
• 25:25
  of evidence, maybe weak or circumstantial on their own, become
• 25:29
  powerful when you put them all together. Each piece adds
• 25:32
  context to the others, and collectively they paint a compelling picture,
• 25:35
  a mosaic of guilt, intent, and premeditation.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: So they're not saying searching for Bundy is the crime.
• 25:41
  They're saying searching for Bundy's methods while sell pings show
• 25:46
  you circling the victim's house, while you're using a VPN
• 25:49
  to hide your tracks, while you're also searching for non
• 25:51
  consensual scenarios involving sleeping victims. That whole picture demonstrates a
• 25:57
  calculated plan to commit these specific murders, Chris.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It's about using the digital trail to establish the motive structure,
• 26:04
  why he might have done it, power control, how he
• 26:07
  planned its, studying methods, reconnaissance, who he targeted, the focus
• 26:10
  on the victim's circle, the saved images. The defense has
• 26:14
  the incredibly difficult task of shattering that mosaic, convincing the
• 26:17
  juror that these are all just unrelated coincidences tied to
• 26:20
  his academic work. It's a huge uphill battle.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: For them now, and stepping back from the courtroom, what
• 26:26
  are the bigger ripples here for society, for how we
• 26:30
  think about crime and privacy.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Well, it starkly highlights this tension, doesn't it, between the
• 26:35
  power of digital forensics and our expectations of privacy. On
• 26:39
  one hand, investigators now have this incredible window into a
• 26:43
  suspect's mind, potentially solving crimes that might have gone unsolved before.
• 26:48
  Your search history can betray your darkest thoughts.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, on the other hand.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: How comfortable are we with law enforcement having such easy
• 26:56
  access to our entire digital lives? Where do we draw
• 26:59
  the line? This case is going to be a major
• 27:02
  test case for those boundaries in the digital.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Age and for the community from Moscow. For the universities,
• 27:07
  there's the ongoing impact too.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it forces uncomfortable conversations about campus safety, lighting security,
• 27:14
  maybe even how universities monitor supports students, especially those immersed
• 27:18
  in potentially disturbing fields of study like criminology. How do
• 27:22
  you spot warning signs when someone's job is literally to
• 27:24
  study deviant behavior.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: It's complex, and through it all you have the families of.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: The victims, right, people like Steve Goncalves, Cayley's father, who's
• 27:33
  been very outspoken. They've consistently said they want justice, not
• 27:37
  just a media circus.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: But given the details, especially these digital details, a spectacle
• 27:43
  seems almost unavoidable. This case feels like it's become a
• 27:46
  cautionary tale about the dark side of the Internet, meaning
• 27:50
  real world horror.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it truly marks a moment where, perhaps more clearly
• 27:54
  than ever, a search bar history might end up revealing
• 27:57
  the alleged soul of a killer. Hashtag outro.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: So pulling this all together for you, what's the bottom
• 28:03
  line here? The case against Brian Coberger has evolved significantly.
• 28:06
  It's not just about the car, the pings, the DNA anymore.
• 28:10
  It's become fundamentally about navigating this incredibly thin, horrifying line
• 28:15
  between legitimate academic fascination and it is sent into violent,
• 28:19
  dark fantasy.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And that digital trail, the Bundy search is timed with reconnaissance,
• 28:23
  the non consensual fixation mirroring the crime scene, the attempts
• 28:26
  at concealment. That's become the prosecution's narrative centerpiece. It connects
• 28:30
  the criminology student directly to the methods of a notorious
• 28:33
  killer and the specific disturbing nature of the attack.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: We live in an age where as you said, our
• 28:38
  digital footprint can feel like a confessional. Every search, every click,
• 28:43
  every saved image potentially leaves a trace of our thoughts
• 28:45
  or desires, our plans, and.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: The profile emerging here is deeply unsettling. The meticulous scholar
• 28:52
  researching the perfect crime, perhaps researching the perfect victim profile,
• 28:56
  and maybe just maybe documenting his own transformation along the way.
• 29:00
  It paints a chilling picture of calculated premeditation.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We talked earlier about his phone reportedly stopping its pings
• 29:07
  near the king Roade House on the night of the murders,
• 29:09
  a deliberate act, it seems to avoid detection. Now think
• 29:13
  about that in the context of his deep dive into
• 29:15
  Ted Bundy, a killer famous for his ruses, his manipulation,
• 29:18
  his deceptive charm. Here's a final thought for you to
• 29:21
  wrestle with. How much of Coberger's own digital activity, the VPN,
• 29:26
  the searches about sociopathy, even the Bundy research itself, was
• 29:29
  part of a calculated performance, an attempt to live out
• 29:32
  his academic interests while carefully constructing an alibi or concealing
• 29:36
  his true intentions.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Versus how much was it a genuine psychological spiral, a
• 29:41
  fascination that consumed him, that he studied but ultimately couldn't control.
• 29:46
  Where does the study of devians end and the surrender
• 29:49
  to it begin.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: That's the profoundly complex question the jury and all of
• 29:53
  us watching will likely grapple with. Thank you for joining
• 29:55
  us for this deep dive,