Speaker 1: The Moscow Police Department put out a renewed call for
Speaker 1: social media content, pictures and videos.
Speaker 2: From the community.
Speaker 1: Investigators are still asking anyone with any information to contact
Speaker 1: the Moscow tip Line. The investigation into who killed four
Speaker 1: University of Idaho students has now received ten thousand tips.
Speaker 3: This is the Idaho Massacre a production of KT Studios
Speaker 3: and iHeartRadio, Episode six The Hunt Courtney Armstrong, a television
Speaker 3: producer at KT Studios, with Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, and
Speaker 3: Connor Powell. Weeks after four University of Idaho students were
Speaker 3: murdered in their off campus home, investigators are on a
Speaker 3: relentless search for the killer as the tips rolled in.
Speaker 3: Multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Idaho's d Police and
Speaker 3: the FBI, were working with the Moscow PD to crack
Speaker 3: the case. They were methodically zeroing in on their main suspect,
Speaker 3: following the evidence from the mysterious white Atlantra to the
Speaker 3: DNA left at the scene. While observing Brian Coberger at
Speaker 3: his family's home in Pennsylvania, the twenty eight year old
Speaker 3: was seen wearing rubber latex gloves in public and putting
Speaker 3: trash in neighbor's garbage cans. Coburger's family also noticed this
Speaker 3: bizarre behavior. According to reports, one of his own sisters
Speaker 3: began to wonder if her brother could have been involved
Speaker 3: in the murders, at one point even saying loudly that
Speaker 3: her brother lived near the victims and drove a white
Speaker 3: Honda Atlantra. While some in the Coburger family may have
Speaker 3: had their suspicions about him, unbeknownst to them, their own
Speaker 3: family's genetic DNA would be key to linking Brian Koeberger
Speaker 3: to the murders.
Speaker 4: Big crack in this case came from das a specifically
Speaker 4: genetic genealogy.
Speaker 3: Within days of the gruesome murders, police suspected the white
Speaker 3: Houndai Alantra seen repeatedly driving near the King Road crime
Speaker 3: site was connected to the murders. Investigators immediately began compiling
Speaker 3: a list of white Lantras registered in the region. Investigators
Speaker 3: first sought cell records. They then most likely looked for
Speaker 3: every person who panged the Moscow Tower and owned to
Speaker 3: white Alantra, but the search of the long list of
Speaker 3: white Alantra's didn't turn up anything conclusive for weeks. Here's
Speaker 3: Jeff and Stephanie.
Speaker 5: As November was coming to a close, the Moscow police
Speaker 5: assured the public that there was no threat to the
Speaker 5: community and that they were in fact making progress.
Speaker 6: And at this point cops were really combing through thousands
Speaker 6: of tips and pieces of information, most of which frankly
Speaker 6: led nowhere.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine the pressure. Not only are they concerned
Speaker 5: about the safety of this college town, but they have
Speaker 5: the whole world watching them.
Speaker 6: I remember this time, the public really wanted information, and
Speaker 6: every day that went by without an arrest, people were
Speaker 6: getting angrier and angrier.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a really unfair expectation, but at this point
Speaker 5: there really was no credible suspect or murder weapon.
Speaker 6: And then by early December, investigators had combed through the
Speaker 6: victim's classmates, their friends, as well as any perhaps registered
Speaker 6: sex offenders in the area, stalkers, any individuals known for
Speaker 6: violently harassing people. They even looked into a local white supremacist,
Speaker 6: but again, sadly, it all led to nothing.
Speaker 5: The white Alantra was truly the best lead, but it's
Speaker 5: an incredibly common car. In twenty twenty one, Hyundai sold
Speaker 5: over one hundred and twenty four thousand Lantras, In fact,
Speaker 5: the number of aluntras sold last year compared to the
Speaker 5: year before increased forty seven percent, So it's basically like
Speaker 5: finding a needle in a haystack.
Speaker 3: For weeks, Brian Coberger was simply a name on an
Speaker 3: ever growing list, one of the many white Atlanta owners,
Speaker 3: and then he was the lone suspect and under arrest.
Speaker 7: Suspect Brian Coburger is behind bars after investigators linked his
Speaker 7: DNA at the crime scene two of a DNA taken
Speaker 7: from the trash at his parents' home.
Speaker 3: The official public story laid out in the Probable Cause
Speaker 3: AFFI David is that investigator's positively identified Coburger by matching
Speaker 3: DNA evidence from the knife sheath to Coburger's father's DNA.
Speaker 3: But investigators in the Idaho Police Lab didn't have a
Speaker 3: positive DNA match for the twenty eight year old criminology
Speaker 3: student until at least December twenty seventh, when a surveillance
Speaker 3: crew pulled his father's DNA from the trash. So how
Speaker 3: did investigators know and with such confidence to start surveillance
Speaker 3: on Coburger long before the conclusive DNA match.
Speaker 6: Investigative genetic genealogy was used to point them in his direction.
Speaker 3: The path to positively identify in the Washington State University
Speaker 3: PhD student, employed and new, and at the same time
Speaker 3: one of the most controversial modern crime solving techniques. It's
Speaker 3: a DNA method that is only reluctantly talked about by
Speaker 3: law enforcement. Before we can explain what genetic genealogy is
Speaker 3: and why it's so rare and controversial, we need to
Speaker 3: explain how DNA material is normally collected and used in
Speaker 3: a criminal investigation.
Speaker 4: So DNA is what makes us what we are, and
Speaker 4: every single cell of our body, with a few exceptions,
Speaker 4: has the same DNA. I like to describe it as
Speaker 4: an enormous encyclopedia.
Speaker 3: That's Daniel Padini, the head of the forensic Sciences department
Speaker 3: at George Washington University speaking with Jeff.
Speaker 4: And every cell of our body kind of harvests or
Speaker 4: looks at parts of that encyclopedia that it needs to
Speaker 4: become what it needs to develop in. So the liver
Speaker 4: cell will look at the encyclopedia chapter on how to
Speaker 4: become a liver cell. The retina cell will do the same,
Speaker 4: but it's going to be a different chapter. But the
Speaker 4: entire encyclopedia is present in every single cell, so we
Speaker 4: can look at parts of this encyclopedia that are different
Speaker 4: among individuals, and we can generate the DNA profile that
Speaker 4: has a very very low frequency in the population to
Speaker 4: the point that we can essentially identify a single individual.
Speaker 5: How has that now kind of changed the way investigators
Speaker 5: work on criminal cases.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really has dramatically changed the forensic investigations in
Speaker 4: terms of being able to identify an individual that was
Speaker 4: a crime scene. If a biological evidence is recovered at
Speaker 4: a crime scene, a DNA profile can be generated and
Speaker 4: then compared either to a database everybody's heard about the
Speaker 4: CODIS Combined DNA Index System, which is a repository of
Speaker 4: DNA profiles from convicted defenders or directly to the DNA
Speaker 4: of suspect in order to identify the person that left
Speaker 4: their DNA at the crime scene.
Speaker 5: And as we know, there was touch DNA found on it.
Speaker 5: Can you explain to us what touch DNA is.
Speaker 4: Touch DNA is a very general term that refers to
Speaker 4: the DNA that is deposited on a surface through touching it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of different types of cells that can
Speaker 4: be deposited when touching a surface. For example, if I
Speaker 4: scratch my nose or I cough in my hand, they're
Speaker 4: being me some cells that come from the mucus or
Speaker 4: from sali. There's also epithelial cells from my skin that
Speaker 4: I'm gonna deposit. And also there's a lot of cell
Speaker 4: free DNA that is secreted in sweat. So there's a
Speaker 4: bunch of different types of sources of DNA that we deposit.
Speaker 4: So exactly what touch DNA is we don't know, but
Speaker 4: it's a combination of all of those and so, and
Speaker 4: you can't really see it with a naked eye, so
Speaker 4: you have to trust or you have to make some assumptions,
Speaker 4: and generally you're going to try and collect that from
Speaker 4: surfaces dead will have been touched.
Speaker 5: Is it how we see in the movies where they
Speaker 5: like dust it and there's like a perfect thumbprint on
Speaker 5: the ground or wherever.
Speaker 4: No, it's not quite like that. Sometimes if there's a
Speaker 4: blood stain or a semen stain or a saliva stain,
Speaker 4: then yes, it's it's pretty simple. You swab that area,
Speaker 4: you transfer the biology stain onto a swab, and then
Speaker 4: you extract the DNA directly from the swab. At times,
Speaker 4: though you're not able to see the DNA, you can
Speaker 4: assume that there is DNA in that area, and so
Speaker 4: you swab that surface. In the case that we're talking about,
Speaker 4: they found this knife sheet and they swabbed the area.
Speaker 4: At least that's my understanding. They swabbed the area around
Speaker 4: the button and they extracted the DNA from that, But
Speaker 4: you don't necessarily see it, and you don't know it's
Speaker 4: there until you've completed the extraction process and you went
Speaker 4: through a second process that's called DNA quantification. The DNA
Speaker 4: quantification process allows us to determine how much DNA there
Speaker 4: is and also the quality of that DNA in terms
Speaker 4: of it being degraded or potentially inhibited.
Speaker 5: So if you're an investigator, you just kind of try
Speaker 5: to get DNA off of anything without you're kind of
Speaker 5: blindly doing it. You're thinking, Okay, there could be DNA here,
Speaker 5: could be DA in here, and then it's not till
Speaker 5: you test it that you actually are are aware of
Speaker 5: if there is DNA, and then you have to figure
Speaker 5: out how much DNA.
Speaker 4: Obviously, you can't swab an entire apartment. That's just not practical,
Speaker 4: and the DNA extraction process and analysis is expensive and
Speaker 4: it takes time, so you need to be frugal and
Speaker 4: keep in mind the resources that are available. So you
Speaker 4: tend to do an evaluation of the crime scene and
Speaker 4: based on the scenario, identify pieces of evidence that have
Speaker 4: the greatest chance of providing useful information for the case.
Speaker 3: Here again, Stephanie and Jeff.
Speaker 6: Since its creation in nineteen eighty seven, DNA testing has
Speaker 6: proven to be an incredible useful tool in identifying criminals.
Speaker 6: It completely changed the criminal justice system.
Speaker 5: How it applies to this case is really fascinating. We
Speaker 5: know that investigators pulled a single source mail touch DNA
Speaker 5: off the button of the knife sheet that was left
Speaker 5: at the murdercy. Touch DNA is DNA transferred from a
Speaker 5: person to an object via contact with the object itself.
Speaker 5: It's called touch DNA because it only requires very small samples,
Speaker 5: for example, from the skin cell left on something after
Speaker 5: it's been touched or casually handled, or from footprints. So
Speaker 5: cops have this piece of touch DNA and they tried
Speaker 5: to link that to criminals already in the system. Because,
Speaker 5: as you may or may not know, when someone is arrested,
Speaker 5: they have to give a fingerprint, which then gets put
Speaker 5: into law enforcement's database system. So let's say whoever did
Speaker 5: commit this massacre also had robbed a bank years ago,
Speaker 5: cops would get a match and have all the suspects information.
Speaker 6: But that didn't happen here because by all accounts, Brian
Speaker 6: did not have any kind of a criminal record. Maybe
Speaker 6: he was busted for tailgating or something, but that was
Speaker 6: the extent of it.
Speaker 5: I would think that since he had wanted to work
Speaker 5: in law enforcement and applied for that internship, that he
Speaker 5: might have had to give his fingerprint at some point.
Speaker 6: But there was no match in the system of DNA
Speaker 6: at the crime scene. So unfortunately this was just a
Speaker 6: dead end.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. With pressure mounting and leads coming up empty,
Speaker 3: investigators turned to genetic genealogy as an alternative way of
Speaker 3: identifying DNA on the knife sheath. Here's forensic expert Joseph
Speaker 3: Scott Morgan.
Speaker 2: The cool thing about genetic genealogy, and it's almost as
Speaker 2: if you've got people that have discovered this thing just
Speaker 2: in the last few years, where it's this fascinating methodology
Speaker 2: of tracking down things or putting an identity to things
Speaker 2: or people more specifically, that otherwise have remained kind of
Speaker 2: cloaked in secrecy for many, many years.
Speaker 5: How would you say it differs or doesn't differ from
Speaker 5: regular DNA testing.
Speaker 2: When it comes to testing for any kind of biological element,
Speaker 2: as it's tied back to DNA. The FEDS maintain a
Speaker 2: database that is actually referred to it's the FBI's database
Speaker 2: that's actually referred to as CODIS, which is combined DNA
Speaker 2: Index System. And people hear this term thrown around quite
Speaker 2: a bit, and I'm sure that folks have heard about,
Speaker 2: you know, where you have sex offenders where they are
Speaker 2: mandated by court to give up a sample and once
Speaker 2: that sample is rendered, unto the courts and unto the system,
Speaker 2: it's banked at that point in time. So those are
Speaker 2: known offenders, all right. On the other side of the house,
Speaker 2: you have what's referred to as a forensic database. Those
Speaker 2: are these horrible crimes, just like you know, the Golden
Speaker 2: State killer that have gone undetected from many years. Those
Speaker 2: are forensic cases where you have a sample which is
Speaker 2: essentially the DNA code that's built into all of us,
Speaker 2: but yet you don't have an identity that goes specifically
Speaker 2: to that person, and so those are the unknowns. And
Speaker 2: when you're looking at serialized crimes, for instance, if you
Speaker 2: can get a DNA sample from multiple cases and it
Speaker 2: kind of funneled back into the system, what they're looking
Speaker 2: for in the forensic side of the house is to
Speaker 2: see if you get multiple hits from a single individual,
Speaker 2: and that gives you an idea of that you have
Speaker 2: a serial perpetrator, for instance, on your hands. Now here's
Speaker 2: the thing when it comes to genetic genealogy. This throws
Speaker 2: kind of a wrinkle into everything because for years and
Speaker 2: years it's been all about unknown assailants. When you have
Speaker 2: an event where you have DNA deposition at a scene,
Speaker 2: let's say, for instance, from any kind of body fluid,
Speaker 2: blood seam, whatever the case, saliva at the scene, or
Speaker 2: maybe even partial DNA that we get from touch DNA,
Speaker 2: if you can capture that bit of biological sample, you
Speaker 2: can kind of kick it into the next level with
Speaker 2: genetic genealogy because there is this massive database that exists
Speaker 2: out there of people that are seeking their ancestors, or
Speaker 2: perhaps people that are looking to find out their parentage,
Speaker 2: people that have been put up for adoption, Who are
Speaker 2: they related to? And so many government agencies look at
Speaker 2: this as this kind of broad ranging spectrum that they
Speaker 2: can dig into and utilize that to kind of connect
Speaker 2: the dots, if you would, as to who an unknown
Speaker 2: perpetrator might be. And you know, here's the thing. Many
Speaker 2: of these cases are solved by identifying cousins of all things,
Speaker 2: and we all have cousins. Many of us are related
Speaker 2: to one another, and we have no idea, and so
Speaker 2: you look for this connectivity and then you kind of
Speaker 2: begin to narrow this down with genetic genealogy.
Speaker 3: Despite having their own in state forensic laboratory, the Idaho
Speaker 3: State Police contacted a private third party company to conduct
Speaker 3: the genealogy testing. Athroom is a Texas based company that
Speaker 3: specializes in forensic genetic genealogy and has helped resolve unsolved
Speaker 3: murders and identify unknown victims. With the help of the FBI,
Speaker 3: the firm was able to create a more extensive DNA
Speaker 3: profile of the suspected killer, and then it was uploaded
Speaker 3: to commercial genetic testing databases.
Speaker 5: Jeff and Stephanie, we don't know where the data profile
Speaker 5: was uploaded. Most likely, though it was Jebmatch or family
Speaker 5: Tree DNA, which are both familial DNA testing services. On
Speaker 5: these sites you can find out what your heritage is
Speaker 5: or if you have any long lost cousins across the world.
Speaker 5: They are also both commercial websites that allow law enforcement searches.
Speaker 5: They differ from twenty three in me or Ancestry DNA,
Speaker 5: which do not allow investigators to search the records.
Speaker 6: That does make perfect sense from a consumer's standpoint. I mean, look,
Speaker 6: if you go to a website like twenty three in
Speaker 6: me or Ancestry DNA, you may not want your personal
Speaker 6: data getting out to law enforcement or personal data regarding
Speaker 6: anybody in your family. I would imagine that these companies
Speaker 6: are frankly afraid that law enforcement has access to everyone's
Speaker 6: DNA and then people won't upload their info, thus hurting
Speaker 6: their ultimate bottom line. Privacy is a pretty major concern
Speaker 6: for this industry.
Speaker 3: Here again Jeff speaking with forensic expert just so Scott Morgan, and.
Speaker 5: Would you say that's why it's controversial, because every Tom,
Speaker 5: Dick and Harry can kind of help the police catch
Speaker 5: their cousin in a crime.
Speaker 2: Most people in the population that are submitting their DNA,
Speaker 2: they don't have a point of reference for what their
Speaker 2: constitutional standing is as it applies to privacy and these
Speaker 2: sorts of things. And you know, I think that for
Speaker 2: many folks when they render this DNA sample, and it's
Speaker 2: generally a cheek swab or a cheek scraping. When you
Speaker 2: go in, you take the sample, you submit it to
Speaker 2: one of these companies and they begin to run your profile.
Speaker 2: You don't have this expectation that this is going to
Speaker 2: be used to solve a crime. Now, many people might
Speaker 2: not have a problem with that, but others do. They're
Speaker 2: not entering into this agreement with a company so that
Speaker 2: they're going to be crime solvers. They want to determine
Speaker 2: the mystery that surrounds their heritage and to try to
Speaker 2: determine who they came from. The Supreme Court has ruled
Speaker 2: in the past that you do not have like a
Speaker 2: baked in expectation of privacy if you freely surrender something, Okay,
Speaker 2: particularly in this case we're talking about genetic material. They've
Speaker 2: held that there is no expectation of privacy for a
Speaker 2: third party. And so you've got these two that go
Speaker 2: back and forth. What it comes down to, I think
Speaker 2: probably for many of these companies people famously like ancestry
Speaker 2: dot com. We've got twenty three and me that have
Speaker 2: been out there for a while. They have vigorously stated
Speaker 2: that they are not working with any government agency and
Speaker 2: they're not going to surrender anything unless they're being presented
Speaker 2: with a subpoena that they are in fact being compelled
Speaker 2: to offer up these profiles that they have. And so
Speaker 2: that in and of itself is kind of striking when
Speaker 2: it comes to the utility of forensic genealogy.
Speaker 5: And is that why you think to use it or
Speaker 5: to talk about it when they do.
Speaker 2: Use it, I think to a great degree, police are
Speaker 2: reticent to reveal their sources when it comes to you generally,
Speaker 2: don't find out the veil is not lifted. If you will,
Speaker 2: you know from their source how they went about accomplishing
Speaker 2: this these tasks. There are companies out there that do
Speaker 2: in fact aid in the facilitation of this. Orthum comes
Speaker 2: to mind in particular, they've been around for a few
Speaker 2: years now and they've certainly made a name from themselves
Speaker 2: and are highly regarded from a scientific perspective and the
Speaker 2: methodologies that they employ, and they've had great success. The
Speaker 2: average person on the street they're asked this question, how
Speaker 2: much do you value your privacy if the whole thing
Speaker 2: turns upon your DNA? Are you willing to surrender that
Speaker 2: bit of privacy that you have in order to solve
Speaker 2: a crime that might facilitate someone being taken off the
Speaker 2: street and that sort of thing. And it's not necessarily
Speaker 2: a very simple answer. It can be very very complicated.
Speaker 5: This case, I think is different because we hear about
Speaker 5: it so much for cold cases, but this is an
Speaker 5: active investigation where genetic genealogy came into place, so obviously
Speaker 5: the question for normally in cold cases, this is a
Speaker 5: little bit of an outlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is in fact not a cold case.
Speaker 2: From the very first day that this happened, you could
Speaker 2: hear the whisperings already, I'd say probably within the first
Speaker 2: twelve hours of me being on the air and covering
Speaker 2: the case. From a forensic standpoint, I had questions being
Speaker 2: thrown at me repeatedly about DNA and DNA linkage to
Speaker 2: a potential perpetrator. How is it possible that a subject
Speaker 2: could go into an environment which we can, I think
Speaker 2: pretty safely state is just a blood bath and not
Speaker 2: leave some essence of themselves behind, and you have the
Speaker 2: genetic connection at the scene in that home where this
Speaker 2: massacre took place, and then apparently you have genetic connectivity
Speaker 2: at Coberg's family's house. So now you're looking at two
Speaker 2: things that are kind of coalescing here, they're coming together,
Speaker 2: and you begin to create this picture. It's a damning
Speaker 2: bit of evidence. I think now the courts, the attorneys
Speaker 2: will get together and they'll begin to question things like
Speaker 2: sourcing and procedurally, how was this done, how was the
Speaker 2: assessment done, How can this actually be validated? How do
Speaker 2: we know the sample may or may not have been
Speaker 2: contaminated because it is so very fragile. Those questions will
Speaker 2: come up. But the fact is you have this arguably
Speaker 2: astronomical numerical mountain that the defense is going to have
Speaker 2: to climb in this case. And I look, I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily think that the DNA data that they gathered there
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, and the DNA that we know about at
Speaker 2: least thus far from what was collected at this quadruple
Speaker 2: homicide is the end of the DNA. There very well
Speaker 2: might be more, we just don't know what it is
Speaker 2: at this point, though.
Speaker 5: What's your opinion As an expert, do you think genetic
Speaker 5: genealogy should be used for rest or narrowing down suspect less.
Speaker 2: I think that there is utility for it, certainly. I
Speaker 2: don't know that I have encountered a case where it
Speaker 2: was turned around this quickly, you know, because look, it
Speaker 2: seems as though we've been covering Idaho forever and ever
Speaker 2: this point, but we haven't. It's really been a very
Speaker 2: short period of time, and this profile was turned out
Speaker 2: very quickly. So there is obviously provable utility relative to
Speaker 2: the tool. I think that it can potentially be a
Speaker 2: very slippery slope from a privacy standpoint. There are so
Speaker 2: many cases out there that are cold, and you would
Speaker 2: want nothing more than to have answers to these things
Speaker 2: that have kind of lingered in our mind and actually
Speaker 2: have become part and parcel of our history, And certainly
Speaker 2: in the true crime community. Can you even imagine if
Speaker 2: they were able to, say, for instance, come up with
Speaker 2: a bit of unidentified DNA from say the Black Dalia
Speaker 2: case or from Jack the Ripper, and they were able
Speaker 2: to construct some kind of DNA profile based upon that.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us would really like to
Speaker 2: know who those individuals might be that committed these crimes. However,
Speaker 2: we have to keep in the forefront of our mind
Speaker 2: what our expectations are as American citizens. Do we have
Speaker 2: a right to privacy? And this is not just maybe
Speaker 2: our records or our papers that you're talking about government
Speaker 2: authorities having access to. We're talking about our base genetic code.
Speaker 5: Do you think it's the future? Like, is there any
Speaker 5: way to stop to you know, kind of put this
Speaker 5: back in the box or is it like now police
Speaker 5: have this in their tool, but they're going to use it.
Speaker 2: No, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Speaker 2: We're beyond that. Now we've crossed the rubicon. It will
Speaker 2: be used and continue to be used. I just hope
Speaker 2: that the people that wheel the tool have the best
Speaker 2: interest of the citizenry at large, because no one in
Speaker 2: our population is guilty until they are in fact proven guilty.
Speaker 2: A quadruple homicide in a college town is stuff that
Speaker 2: just doesn't happen every day, and it's one of these
Speaker 2: moments in time that it has created extraordinary circumstances, and
Speaker 2: to my way of thinking, the investigative authorities that are
Speaker 2: involved in this case went to extraordinary measures in order
Speaker 2: to facilitate the solving of this case, or at least
Speaker 2: to give them an indication as to who may have
Speaker 2: had a hand in this. And that's why they went
Speaker 2: through these great links using genetic genealogy.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another break. Once FBI investigators and
Speaker 3: authroom genealogists had the DNA, they began to look for
Speaker 3: full or partial matches to the suspected Idaho Killers DNA.
Speaker 3: The first results were distant relatives. Slowly they created a
Speaker 3: massive family tree that utilized the genetic information of the
Speaker 3: Coburger's immediate family cousins and all of their distant relatives.
Speaker 3: That tree would have provided a short list of potential
Speaker 3: suspects within the Coburger family tree. Again, Stephanie and Jeff.
Speaker 5: The most famous successful case of genetic genealogy mapping is
Speaker 5: the Golden State Killer. In the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Speaker 5: he terrorized California, murdering at least thirteen people. Likely he
Speaker 5: killed and raped many more. But even with DNA evidence,
Speaker 5: years went by with no solid leads and the cases
Speaker 5: went cold. Why because the killer wasn't in any criminal database.
Speaker 5: But in twenty eighteen, investigators had an idea. They used
Speaker 5: public DNA information to see if they could locate and
Speaker 5: identify family members of the Golden State killer using genetic
Speaker 5: genealogy mapping. After painstakingly mapping out the killer's genetic links,
Speaker 5: police were able to identify Joseph James DiAngelo, a retired
Speaker 5: police officer living outside Sacramento, California.
Speaker 6: To me, it's super interesting that he, just like co
Speaker 6: Burger aspired to be, was also in law enforcement.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 5: So anyways, this technique is now being used to solve
Speaker 5: hundreds of cold cases.
Speaker 6: I'll say this though, it really does require a shift
Speaker 6: in the process and the procedures that are currently in
Speaker 6: place to catching a bad guy because labs really aren't
Speaker 6: set up to do this type of genetic genealogy mapping.
Speaker 6: They also don't regularly employ genealogists who map family trees.
Speaker 5: But all that might change because of the success of
Speaker 5: the Idaho investigation.
Speaker 3: On the morning of December nineteenth, investigators positively identified their
Speaker 3: loan suspect by mapping the genetic similarities of the killers' relatives.
Speaker 3: Police were able to confirm through DNA genetic genealogy mapping
Speaker 3: that twenty eight year old Brian Coberger was the likely killer.
Speaker 6: Can you imagine that day for the hardworking investigators on
Speaker 6: this case.
Speaker 5: Yeah, was already one of their suspects. His name had
Speaker 5: been forwarded to investigators. He drove a white Honda a Lantra,
Speaker 5: he lived near the victims, had exhibited odd behavior, and
Speaker 5: his cell phone had pinged in the area of the crowd.
Speaker 5: He checked every.
Speaker 6: Box, and yet without a murder weapon or some kind
Speaker 6: of DNA evidence, police still don't really have any real
Speaker 6: case against him. While it might seem like a lot
Speaker 6: in hindsight, at the time, it was all really circumstantial
Speaker 6: To make an arrest. Cops really needed something more.
Speaker 5: And it's not really clear if Cooberger was quote unquote
Speaker 5: the suspect before the genealogy ampol came back, or if
Speaker 5: his name was just on a long list of persons
Speaker 5: of interest.
Speaker 3: With Coburger now identified as the prime suspect, investigators worked
Speaker 3: to strengthen their case against him, applying for a search
Speaker 3: warrant of Coburger's phone activity and the time period around
Speaker 3: the murders. On the morning of the killings, the result
Speaker 3: showed Coburger's phone hanging a tower near his home before
Speaker 3: moving south at a rapid speed and then disco connecting
Speaker 3: from the cellular phone system. Here's reporter Chris Spargo.
Speaker 8: So at two forty two in the morning, Brian Coburger's
Speaker 8: cell phone is recorded as sort of being on the
Speaker 8: network in Pullman, Washington, where his dormitory is on Washingt
Speaker 8: State University campus. Then a few minutes later goes off
Speaker 8: the network and is disconnected. From that point on, there's
Speaker 8: just counts of people seeing his white han Day lantro
Speaker 8: so is white han Day Launt scene leaving Pullman shortly
Speaker 8: after that, and then around three point thirty ittth seen
Speaker 8: in Moscow. Now, the direct route from Pullman to Moscow
Speaker 8: is about fifteen minutes tops, and this is late at night,
Speaker 8: so it's not going to be any traffic, so it's
Speaker 8: assumed he took some sort of way that would have
Speaker 8: gone around that sort of main road.
Speaker 3: During the exact moments of the murders, Coburger's cell phone
Speaker 3: was offline and wouldn't return until four forty eight am,
Speaker 3: at least twenty minutes after investigators say the murders took place.
Speaker 3: When Coburger's phone does reconnect, it pings off several towers
Speaker 3: south of Moscow and maps an odd early morning travel
Speaker 3: pattern for the next forty five minutes. The data shows
Speaker 3: Coburger driving on back roads and taking an off the
Speaker 3: beaten track route to his home in Pullman, Washington.
Speaker 8: It's a difficult alibi for him because he has to
Speaker 8: explain that phone called ping off the tower in the
Speaker 8: middle of nowhere at four forty five am on the
Speaker 8: night of the murders.
Speaker 3: Police also obtained cell phone data that showed that Coburger's
Speaker 3: phone was in the area of the house on King
Speaker 3: Road at least a dozen times in the weeks before
Speaker 3: the attack. By December twenty third, police were closing in
Speaker 3: on Coburger, but investigators still need a direct genetic comparison
Speaker 3: between Coburger and the DNA on the knife sheath before
Speaker 3: making an arrest. Four days later, Pennsylvania State Police are
Speaker 3: tasked with watching Brian Coburger pull trash from his parents'
Speaker 3: home on December twenty eighth. DNA results showed that the
Speaker 3: mail DNA pulled from the trash can was a ninety
Speaker 3: nine point nine nine nine eight percent likely to be
Speaker 3: the biological father of the DNA pulled from the knife
Speaker 3: sheath left on Madison Mogan's bed. This parental link was
Speaker 3: the last piece of evidence needed for an arrest warrant.
Speaker 3: Coburger was arrested shortly after. When Brian Coberger was arrested
Speaker 3: in the early hours of December thirtieth, his family didn't
Speaker 3: know the role their own DNA played in his capture,
Speaker 3: but they did release a statement expressing sympathy for the
Speaker 3: four Idaho families who lost their precious children. Coberger's family
Speaker 3: also said they had fully cooperated with law enforcement agencies
Speaker 3: in an attempt to seek the truth. They also asked
Speaker 3: for privacy as the case move forward through the legal process. Later,
Speaker 3: they found out their own family's DNA led investigators to
Speaker 3: Brian Coburger, Stephanie, and Jeff.
Speaker 5: DNA has become increasingly important for successful prosecutions thanks to
Speaker 5: something called the CSI effect, which shows like CSI, Cold
Speaker 5: Case Without a Trace, Criminal Linds basically every other CBS series.
Speaker 5: Everyone thinks they're a criminal expert, so a large portion
Speaker 5: of jurors expect that the prosecutors will present some type
Speaker 5: of scientific data as part of their.
Speaker 6: Case, which in some cases is a very fair assessment,
Speaker 6: and look things like eyewitnesses and motives are still very important,
Speaker 6: but without any kind of scientific DNA or firearm ballistics
Speaker 6: or fingerprints, it's really hard to get a conviction.
Speaker 5: The CSI effect is fascinating as it may also affect
Speaker 5: how criminals themselves act. In the year two thousand, when
Speaker 5: CSI premiered, forty six point nine percent of all rate
Speaker 5: cases in the United States were resolved by police. By
Speaker 5: two thousand and five, the rate had fallen to forty
Speaker 5: one point three percent. Some investigators attributed this to client
Speaker 5: to the CSI effect, as crime shows often inadvertently explain
Speaker 5: in detail how criminals can conceal or destroy evidence.
Speaker 6: But back to how this affects this case. Look, as
Speaker 6: we know, our legal system demands proof beyond a reasonable
Speaker 6: doubt before we can convict, and the jurors see these
Speaker 6: types of scientific tests as frankly undeniable proof of guilt,
Speaker 6: whereas eyewitnesses or potential motives those can be sometimes imperfect.
Speaker 5: There have been multiple studies that say more than seventy
Speaker 5: percent of jurors expect scientific evidence like DNA and murder
Speaker 5: or rape prosecutions.
Speaker 6: And really it has done extraordinary work in terms of
Speaker 6: people being released from prison because the DNA testing obviously
Speaker 6: proved their innocence despite the fact that they had been convicted,
Speaker 6: So when you think about it, it's not surprising that
Speaker 6: Idaho prosecutors have put a ton of weight into the
Speaker 6: DNA elements of this case.
Speaker 5: If this does go to trial, it's safe to assume
Speaker 5: that prosecutors will have to show that Brian Coberger was
Speaker 5: in the house and his DNA was all over the
Speaker 5: crime scene where Kaylee Madison, Sanna and Ethan were killed.
Speaker 5: The question is, though, is that going to be an
Speaker 5: impossible task?
Speaker 3: More on that next time. For worm on the case
Speaker 3: and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at KAT Underscore Studios.
Speaker 3: The Idaho Masacre is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane,
Speaker 3: Connor Powell, Chris Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 3: Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music by Jared Aston.
Speaker 3: The Idaho Masacre is a production of iHeart Radio and
Speaker 3: KAT Studios. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 7: I'm Diana, You May Knows Body Movin, My Friend and
Speaker 7: I John Green were featured in the Netflix documentary Don't
Speaker 7: f with Cats. On our new podcast, True Crimes with
Speaker 7: John and Deiana were turning our online investigative skills to
Speaker 7: some of the most unexplained, unsolved, and most ignored cases.
Speaker 2: Please say.
Speaker 5: Thirty three year old bride Again was shot dead.
Speaker 2: Gunned down in front of his two year old daughter.
Speaker 8: Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted attack.
Speaker 4: It appears to be an execution style of assassination.
Speaker 7: This is very active, so we have to be careful.
Speaker 6: I've heard that there's a house that has some bodies
Speaker 6: in the basement.
Speaker 4: I knew. I just knew something was wrong.
Speaker 5: Maybe there's something more sinister at play than just one
Speaker 5: young girl going missing. If you know something, heard something,
Speaker 5: please it's never too late.
Speaker 4: To do the right thing.
Speaker 7: This is True Crimes with John and Deianna, the.
Speaker 5: Production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: Justice is something that takes different shapes or formed