Latest / Beyond The Horizon / Murder In Moscow: The Driver Who Drove Kaylee And Madison Home Gives An Interview

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Murder In Moscow: The Driver Who Drove Kaylee And Madison Home Gives An Interview · Beyond The Horizon

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program. We
0:04
Speaker 1: haven't heard much from people who knew Madison or Kaylee,
0:09
Speaker 1: or Ethan or Zana, and we certainly haven't heard much
0:13
Speaker 1: from people who were with them on the day that
0:16
Speaker 1: they were killed or the day before. However, we're now
0:19
Speaker 1: hearing from the person who gave them a ride home
0:23
Speaker 1: a few hours before they were murdered. So let's go
0:28
Speaker 1: right into this article from the Daily Mail and let's
0:31
Speaker 1: see what this person has to say. Headline exclusive, My
0:37
Speaker 1: job was to get these girls home safe. Private taxi
0:40
Speaker 1: driver who drove Idaho roommates Kaylee and Madison home hours
0:45
Speaker 1: before they were murdered says he is haunted by his
0:48
Speaker 1: role in delivering them to their deaths. Yo, that has
0:52
Speaker 1: to be a very very uneasy feeling to have. You
0:57
Speaker 1: were just with these girls, they were in your vehicle,
1:01
Speaker 1: and you drop them off at this house and they
1:03
Speaker 1: get brutally murdered, even though you can't do anything about it,
1:07
Speaker 1: even in hindsight, How would you know that this is
1:10
Speaker 1: going to happen? But that's easy for us to say, right,
1:13
Speaker 1: We're not the ones who had these girls in their
1:16
Speaker 1: vehicle and drop them off so it definitely has to
1:20
Speaker 1: be a very unnerving situation for this person. The author
1:25
Speaker 1: of this article is Laura Collins. The driver who took
1:31
Speaker 1: two of the murdered University of Idaho students home for
1:35
Speaker 1: the night they were killed, has broken his silence to
1:38
Speaker 1: tell how he is haunted by the knowledge that his
1:41
Speaker 1: job was to get them home safe, but instead he
1:44
Speaker 1: delivered them to their deaths. Speaking for the first time
1:48
Speaker 1: and exclusively to dailymail dot Com, the private taxi driver
1:52
Speaker 1: who was probably the last person to see friends Kaylee
1:56
Speaker 1: Gonsalves and Madison mogan Alive, said, it's weighed on me.
2:00
Speaker 1: I've replayed that night a million times over, trying to
2:03
Speaker 1: think if there was some sign or some detail that
2:07
Speaker 1: something was a miss. But there was nothing, and it
2:11
Speaker 1: was just a regular old night until it wasn't. And
2:15
Speaker 1: I'm sure that this person had given several people, you know,
2:18
Speaker 1: rides home that day that night, and it was just,
2:21
Speaker 1: you know, a standard day until you wake up to
2:24
Speaker 1: the news and find out that four college students were murdered.
2:31
Speaker 1: It's not lost on me that my job was to
2:33
Speaker 1: get these girls home safe, but that didn't really help
2:36
Speaker 1: this time. It's approaching six weeks since Kaylee and Madison
2:41
Speaker 1: were knife to death alongside roommate Xanakernodle and her boyfriend
2:46
Speaker 1: Ethan Chapin during the early morning hours of November thirteenth.
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Speaker 1: The four were slaughtered across the upper floors of the
2:54
Speaker 1: three story home on King Street in Moscow, Idaho, while
2:58
Speaker 1: two other students slept in rooms below. The shocking killings
3:03
Speaker 1: marked the first homicides in Moscow in seven years, and
3:07
Speaker 1: with no lead shared nor suspects named, many have questioned
3:12
Speaker 1: the town's police departments investigators' abilities to handle a crime
3:16
Speaker 1: of such magnitude. And that's going to be criticism no
3:19
Speaker 1: matter what or where you are. And you have to
3:22
Speaker 1: have a thick skin as an investigator because people are
3:26
Speaker 1: going to criticize you. From the Peanut Gallery today, the
3:30
Speaker 1: man who drove Kaylee and Madison home has recounted his
3:34
Speaker 1: recollections of that night and claimed that the community is
3:37
Speaker 1: living in fear with little faith in MPD. And now
3:42
Speaker 1: look that's this person saying this. The driver who drove
3:46
Speaker 1: Maddie and Kaylee home lives in Moscow obviously and saying
3:51
Speaker 1: he doesn't have very much faith in what's going on here.
3:56
Speaker 1: Speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said, I had
3:59
Speaker 1: no Kaylee and Maddie and Xanato. They would occasionally get
4:03
Speaker 1: rides home, and there was nothing out of the ordinary
4:06
Speaker 1: about that night, And I think that adds to how
4:10
Speaker 1: disturbing all of this is. According to everything that we know,
4:14
Speaker 1: everything that we have seen as the public, there was
4:17
Speaker 1: nothing amiss that that night. They were out, they were partying,
4:21
Speaker 1: they were having fun, and then they go home and
4:23
Speaker 1: get killed. So not only is it confusing as to
4:29
Speaker 1: why something like this would happen, but the terror that
4:33
Speaker 1: goes along with something like that, with the unknown, not
4:37
Speaker 1: knowing if the killer is still around, and just thinking
4:40
Speaker 1: about the gruesome nature in which these four college kids
4:43
Speaker 1: were killed is enough to have anybody unnerved, never mind
4:47
Speaker 1: the community and the people who have to live there.
4:50
Speaker 1: Surveillance footage of Kaylee and Madison showed the girls picking
4:54
Speaker 1: a pasta at the grub truck at around one forty
4:57
Speaker 1: am after ending their evening out at the nearby Corner
5:01
Speaker 1: Club bar in downtown Moscow. I picked them up at
5:05
Speaker 1: around one forty five am, said the driver. They had
5:09
Speaker 1: their food and they were super excited about their mac
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Speaker 1: and cheese as girls are after they go to the club,
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Speaker 1: not just girls. I remember when I would be coming
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Speaker 1: home from one of the numerous clubs here in Las
5:21
Speaker 1: Vegas when I was younger, first thing I'd want to
5:24
Speaker 1: do is get some food, usually a place called Robertos.
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Speaker 1: They sat in the back and they chatted. They were normal,
5:33
Speaker 1: just like any other night. They weren't upset about anything
5:36
Speaker 1: or talking about anyone. The driver said he was familiar
5:39
Speaker 1: with surveillance footage in which one of the girls appears
5:42
Speaker 1: to be talking about somebody called Adam earlier in that evening,
5:46
Speaker 1: but he said they didn't talk about him or any
5:49
Speaker 1: other boy on that ride. So it sounds to me
5:54
Speaker 1: like there wasn't anything any sort of issue that was
5:57
Speaker 1: nagging these girls, at least in this vehicle. Nothing that
6:00
Speaker 1: had them crying, nothing that had them sobbing or having
6:04
Speaker 1: a conversation about somebody. So what would elicit this sort
6:09
Speaker 1: of attack. Could it be that it wasn't Madison or
6:13
Speaker 1: Kaylee who were the target. Maybe it was Ethan, Maybe
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Speaker 1: it was Xana, We just don't know. Moscow police have
6:21
Speaker 1: contacted Adam, who they have described as cooperating with their investigation.
6:26
Speaker 1: According to the driver, sometimes the girls would talk about boys,
6:30
Speaker 1: but that night they were just excited about their food.
6:33
Speaker 1: There was no apprehension, no weird feelings, there no upsetness,
6:38
Speaker 1: There was no nervousness about them. They weren't afraid of anybody.
6:42
Speaker 1: There was nobody following them or following us. So this
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Speaker 1: guy is adamant that nothing was a miss as far
6:49
Speaker 1: as the way that Madison and Kaylee were behaving, at
6:54
Speaker 1: least as far as the driver could tell, there was
6:57
Speaker 1: nothing going on that seemed concerning. Nobody was fined following them,
7:00
Speaker 1: nothing like that. There was absolutely nothing about that ride
7:05
Speaker 1: that was different or abnormal. They were just typical sorority
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Speaker 1: girls talking away, and half the time they don't pay
7:13
Speaker 1: a whole lot of attention to us drivers. We're just
7:16
Speaker 1: kind of doing our thing. And I think that's how
7:18
Speaker 1: it is with a lot of ride shairs. Right if
7:20
Speaker 1: you're in the car with your friend, you and your
7:22
Speaker 1: friend are doing whatever it is you're doing, and the
7:25
Speaker 1: driver is busy driving. The driver said he didn't pull
7:29
Speaker 1: right up to the door of the girl's house, stopping
7:32
Speaker 1: instead on the street out front. He said, I just
7:36
Speaker 1: sort of pulled in front of their driveway. I didn't
7:38
Speaker 1: pull right into the parking lot. I usually try not
7:41
Speaker 1: to do that because that's an easy way to get robbed.
7:44
Speaker 1: I try to stay in positions where I can go
7:46
Speaker 1: in either direction so I can get away if I
7:48
Speaker 1: have to. It's never happened, But you hear about these things,
7:52
Speaker 1: and I guess as a delivery driver or a cab driver,
7:56
Speaker 1: you have to be aware, have your head on a swivel,
7:58
Speaker 1: and you never know what's going to your way or
8:01
Speaker 1: what fair you're picking up next. So probably a good
8:04
Speaker 1: idea for this driver to have that kind of awareness.
8:08
Speaker 1: I mean, who wants to get caught up in a
8:10
Speaker 1: situation where you're getting robbed if you can avoid it
8:12
Speaker 1: altogether by having an exit point. But on that night,
8:17
Speaker 1: he saw and felt no threat. In fact, he said,
8:20
Speaker 1: I didn't watch them go all the way in. There
8:23
Speaker 1: were the two of them. It's a relatively safe place.
8:26
Speaker 1: It's not something I would usually sit and watch. Sometimes
8:29
Speaker 1: I absolutely will ask or intervene if I feel a
8:32
Speaker 1: kid needs help. I've taken kids to get their stomach
8:35
Speaker 1: pumped if I feel I have to. This is a
8:38
Speaker 1: college town. These kids are just trying to live their lives.
8:41
Speaker 1: We drivers try to look out for them. They don't
8:44
Speaker 1: need to be preyed on. And I hear that if
8:47
Speaker 1: you're going to be a driver in one of these
8:48
Speaker 1: college towns, probably a good idea to keep your eye
8:51
Speaker 1: on these kids. You know, you don't got to be
8:53
Speaker 1: a Karen or a get off my lawn type. But
8:56
Speaker 1: at the same time, if you're a driver and somebody
8:59
Speaker 1: needs medical attention or somebody needs some help, probably not
9:03
Speaker 1: a good idea to just deposit them right in front
9:05
Speaker 1: of their house right take them to the hospital. Be responsible.
9:11
Speaker 1: The fact that Kaylee and Madison and their friends were
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Speaker 1: so brutally murdered within a couple of hours of him
9:16
Speaker 1: making that drop off, has the driver said wait on him?
9:20
Speaker 1: He said, I've been driving here for years, and it
9:23
Speaker 1: weighed on me. It was rough to think I was
9:25
Speaker 1: one of the last people to see them alive. And
9:28
Speaker 1: I really hope this driver's name isn't put out in
9:31
Speaker 1: the public because, as we've all seen so far, there
9:34
Speaker 1: are some crazy people following along with this case and
9:38
Speaker 1: trying to paint people as being involved or being the killer.
9:43
Speaker 1: And if you're the last person to see them being
9:45
Speaker 1: the driver here, you know there's going to be some
9:48
Speaker 1: crazies out there who are looking to shake your tree.
9:52
Speaker 1: When I saw the news on Monday, it occurred to
9:54
Speaker 1: me I was in that neighborhood, but that was before
9:56
Speaker 1: they'd released any names. As soon as I knew for
9:59
Speaker 1: sure it was the girls, I went to the police.
10:02
Speaker 1: So imagine you're this dude, you're hanging out, You wake
10:05
Speaker 1: up in the morning, you hear about four murders, and
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Speaker 1: then you find out it was the two girls that
10:10
Speaker 1: you dropped off the night before or the early morning before.
10:15
Speaker 1: That has to be a very very disturbing realization. And
10:19
Speaker 1: my ass wouldn't be able to get to the police
10:21
Speaker 1: station fast enough. Honestly, he was, he said, swiftly eliminated
10:27
Speaker 1: from inquiries, having provided officers with a wealth of digital
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Speaker 1: data and the time to receipt from the Taco bell
10:34
Speaker 1: to which he went after dropping the girls back home.
10:37
Speaker 1: Now imagine if he didn't have any of that, he
10:39
Speaker 1: didn't have the Taco bell receipt, Oh boy, would have
10:42
Speaker 1: been hemmed up. In the week since the murders he
10:46
Speaker 1: has watched, he said with dismay, as police have shared
10:49
Speaker 1: little information and the families of the victims have grown
10:53
Speaker 1: increasingly impatient. He said, I took about a week off
10:57
Speaker 1: driving when I just stepped back from it. All those
11:00
Speaker 1: kids deserve justice and they're not getting it. It feels
11:03
Speaker 1: to this community like the police aren't even trying. So look,
11:08
Speaker 1: this is this guy in the community saying that right,
11:10
Speaker 1: not me piping off from my comfortable spot here in
11:13
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. So I think we should pay attention and
11:17
Speaker 1: we should listen when people who live in these places,
11:20
Speaker 1: especially a place like Moscow that's under the microscope, they
11:24
Speaker 1: have a better handle on what's going on one way
11:27
Speaker 1: or the other than any of us could ever possibly
11:30
Speaker 1: hope to imagine, which is one hundred percent related to
11:36
Speaker 1: how they aren't communicating with the community. People are scared.
11:40
Speaker 1: Most of us have very little faith in the MPD.
11:43
Speaker 1: We can't tell if we are watching qualified investigators who
11:46
Speaker 1: have a handle on this situation, or if they are
11:49
Speaker 1: completely at a loss and grasping for straws. Yikes. Now,
11:54
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of people that are starting
11:56
Speaker 1: to have that opinion, or have that opinion already. I'm
12:00
Speaker 1: not willing to jump down that rabbit hole just yet.
12:03
Speaker 1: I want to give these guys the benefit of the doubt,
12:05
Speaker 1: meaning the investigators, because this sort of stuff doesn't happen
12:09
Speaker 1: overnight without the evidence presented. And if they didn't have
12:12
Speaker 1: the evidence in the house of who did this, or
12:16
Speaker 1: they did have some DNA say but it didn't come
12:18
Speaker 1: back in the codis, then how are they supposed to
12:22
Speaker 1: find out who did it without, you know, legwork. So
12:25
Speaker 1: we have to give them some time to do what
12:27
Speaker 1: they got to do. But as far as the communication goes,
12:31
Speaker 1: in my opinion anyway, oh, it's been terrible from Jump Street.
12:36
Speaker 1: It's getting a little bit better now, but you have
12:38
Speaker 1: to do a better job with the messaging that's being
12:42
Speaker 1: passed on to the community as a whole. Moscow police
12:46
Speaker 1: have pushed back at the suggestion that inexperienced officers the
12:50
Speaker 1: lead investigator has only been a cop for two years,
12:54
Speaker 1: are hampering or have already botched the investigation. And of
12:58
Speaker 1: course they're going to push back. Remember there's a lot
13:01
Speaker 1: more on the line for the Moscow Police Department than
13:04
Speaker 1: just finding the killers. Unfortunately, we have to think about
13:07
Speaker 1: the economics that are wrapped up in all of this
13:10
Speaker 1: as well, and I know a lot of people don't
13:12
Speaker 1: want to think about that, and it's disgusting honestly, but
13:16
Speaker 1: it's a fact and its reality. They know that commerce
13:21
Speaker 1: and business, everything makes its way through that university and
13:25
Speaker 1: they can't have a panic on their hands here and
13:28
Speaker 1: it can't look like they're you know, Barney pheyfon around,
13:31
Speaker 1: So of course he's gonna come out and he's gonna
13:33
Speaker 1: forcefully push back against a narrative that his department has
13:37
Speaker 1: no idea what they're doing. Spice appears. No murder weapon
13:41
Speaker 1: has been recovered and no suspects named, but police are
13:44
Speaker 1: still seeking the occupants of a white twenty eleven through
13:47
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen Hondae Alantra with unknown license plates caught on
13:53
Speaker 1: CCTV in the area near the time of the killings.
13:58
Speaker 1: And as far as we're concerned, meaning the pub, that's
14:00
Speaker 1: pretty much all we've received as far as tips the
14:04
Speaker 1: Hondai a Lantra, and if anyone has seen it, to
14:07
Speaker 1: call in and let the police know that there's an
14:10
Speaker 1: out of place honde A Lantra. But besides that, the
14:14
Speaker 1: public has had nothing else. There are now six detectives
14:18
Speaker 1: from MPD, sixty two FBI agents, thirteen Idaho State Police investigators,
14:24
Speaker 1: and fifteen uniformed troopers assisting with community patrols and forensic
14:29
Speaker 1: experts working through the painstaking task of processing evidence recovered
14:34
Speaker 1: from the scene. And that's not an easy job either. Look,
14:38
Speaker 1: we have to be honest when we're discussing this, right,
14:41
Speaker 1: they can't just snap their fingers and process all of
14:44
Speaker 1: the evidence. But at the same time they better be
14:47
Speaker 1: expediting it. Meanwhile, Idaho Governor Brad Little has directed up
14:53
Speaker 1: to one million dollars in state emergency funds for the
14:56
Speaker 1: ongoing investigation, but so far, all the information NPD has
15:02
Speaker 1: shared concerns parties they have eliminated from their inquiries, including
15:06
Speaker 1: the driver, the two surviving roommates, a hooded mail scene
15:10
Speaker 1: in the grub trucks or veillance video, the mail they
15:13
Speaker 1: called numerous times during the early hours of the morning,
15:17
Speaker 1: anyone present at the house when nine to one one
15:19
Speaker 1: was called, and the six roommate or a person named
15:22
Speaker 1: on the lease who had moved out of the home
15:25
Speaker 1: before the school year started and was not present at
15:28
Speaker 1: the time of the murders. Moscow Police Chief James Frye
15:32
Speaker 1: defended the investigation during an appearance on News Nation on Thursday.
15:36
Speaker 1: He said the investigations have been handled properly, We secured
15:41
Speaker 1: the scene quickly, we called in the state police. We
15:44
Speaker 1: did our due diligence in getting the things that we
15:47
Speaker 1: needed to do to have this be a solid case
15:50
Speaker 1: all the way through everything, but make an arrest. I mean,
15:55
Speaker 1: let's not go and pump our tires too much, Heir
15:58
Speaker 1: Chief Fry. We called in the state Lab to collect evidence,
16:02
Speaker 1: and I believe it was the initial stuff that we
16:05
Speaker 1: started and how we did things that will help bring
16:07
Speaker 1: this to a conclusion. Fry said, So what he's saying
16:11
Speaker 1: is this okay? And remember he said this, He's saying
16:15
Speaker 1: that it was the behavior of him and his department
16:18
Speaker 1: right directly in the aftermath of these murders that's going
16:22
Speaker 1: to lead to pay dirt here. So does that mean
16:26
Speaker 1: if it doesn't lead to pay dirt, that him and
16:29
Speaker 1: his department, him and his investigators, they should be held
16:32
Speaker 1: responsible for that as well, Because if you're going to
16:35
Speaker 1: come out and say that we deserve all of the credit,
16:38
Speaker 1: you must certainly deserve the responsibility if things go south
16:42
Speaker 1: as well. Right, I think there's misconception out there with
16:47
Speaker 1: how we operate here in Moscow. We added, we've called
16:50
Speaker 1: an ATF in the past. We've called in the FBI
16:53
Speaker 1: in the past on many of these big cases because
16:56
Speaker 1: they have resources that we don't and we want to
16:59
Speaker 1: have the best investmenttigators. There, Wait a minute, how many
17:02
Speaker 1: times have you needed to call the ATF in the
17:04
Speaker 1: Moscow or the FBI. You guys are breaking up, bar brawl.
17:09
Speaker 1: Stop it. I highly doubt the FBI or the ATF
17:13
Speaker 1: are making regular visits to Moscow. We've always done these
17:19
Speaker 1: investigations with the help of our federal and state partners,
17:23
Speaker 1: he said. We're continuing the investigation. We're continuing to push on.
17:28
Speaker 1: Like I said from the very beginning, I'm very confident
17:30
Speaker 1: we will have a conclusion to this timeline as things develop,
17:34
Speaker 1: and we're following up on all of those things. What
17:38
Speaker 1: a bunch of word salad, right, We're conducting a lot
17:42
Speaker 1: of interviews and we're putting the puzzle together. There's a
17:44
Speaker 1: lot of things we don't know. We're not sure where
17:47
Speaker 1: the individual responsible is. Every tip helps, So what is
17:51
Speaker 1: it that they do know? That's the question, the million
17:54
Speaker 1: dollar question. Earlier this week, during a Today Show interview
17:59
Speaker 1: shot in Gray, an attorney representing the family of Kaylee
18:02
Speaker 1: Gonsalves said that the family is increasingly frustrated with the
18:07
Speaker 1: apparent lack of progress on the case. We want to
18:10
Speaker 1: let them know that we are holding them accountable for
18:13
Speaker 1: their decisions, he said. And if they are in over
18:15
Speaker 1: their heads, then acknowledge that and turn the investigation over
18:19
Speaker 1: to someone who is more versed and handling these types
18:22
Speaker 1: of matters. I'm not sure they're capable of handling a
18:25
Speaker 1: quadruple murder. So he was pretty frank with what he
18:28
Speaker 1: had to say, meaning, mister Gray, and look, you can't
18:32
Speaker 1: blame him or the family for being apprehensive here. Imagine
18:36
Speaker 1: it was your daughter and the lead investigator only had
18:39
Speaker 1: a few years service and previous to that his only policing.
18:45
Speaker 1: And look, it doesn't make him a bad man, but
18:47
Speaker 1: his only policing was as an MP in the eighty
18:50
Speaker 1: second Airborne. How many quadruple homicides are you turning and
18:54
Speaker 1: burning there? So if it was my kid, I'd certainly
18:57
Speaker 1: want a seasoned detective who had worked homicide the cases
19:00
Speaker 1: before handling this case. And I think that's basically what
19:04
Speaker 1: they're trying to say here, right, And sometimes the facts
19:07
Speaker 1: are the facts. You don't have experience doing this. It's
19:10
Speaker 1: not like you have been working on these kinds of
19:12
Speaker 1: cases forever, so of course I'm gonna have some concerns
19:16
Speaker 1: as a father looking for justice. All Right, everybody that's
19:21
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this one. If you'd like to
19:23
Speaker 1: contact me, you can do that at Bobby Kopuci at
19:27
Speaker 1: proton mail dot com. That's b O. B B y
19:30
Speaker 1: C A p U c Ci at proton mail dot com.
19:35
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter at Bobby Underscore
19:39
Speaker 1: c ap Ucci. The link that I discussed can be
19:43
Speaker 1: found in the description box