Speaker 1: Bombshell development Brian Cooberger appearing set to accept a plea
Speaker 1: deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was
Speaker 1: set to start. Brian Coberger was simply out of options
Speaker 1: and out of time.
Speaker 2: Why did the prosecution take this? They were holding all
Speaker 2: the cards.
Speaker 3: He essentially gets to live rent free, no expenses, for
Speaker 3: the rest of his life, and we call that justice.
Speaker 3: It's insane.
Speaker 4: This is the Idaho Massacre, A production of KAT Studios
Speaker 4: and iHeartRadio, Season three, Episode one, The Plea Deal. I'm
Speaker 4: Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios, with Stephanie Leideger
Speaker 4: and Gabriel Castillo.
Speaker 5: Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?
Speaker 4: Yes. After nearly three years of silence, nine hundred and
Speaker 4: sixty two days of unanswered questions and national headlines, the
Speaker 4: moment finally came. In a Boise courtroom under harsh fluorescent lights,
Speaker 4: thirty year old Brian Coberger, a former pH d student
Speaker 4: at Washington State University, stood before a judge and admitted
Speaker 4: to the brutal murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylie Gonsalvez, Xana Kernodle,
Speaker 4: and Ethan Chapin. He showed no emotion, no hesitation, and
Speaker 4: offered no explanation. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty,
Speaker 4: he accepted four life sentences without parole. There was no apology,
Speaker 4: no remorse, just a chilling end to a case that
Speaker 4: shattered a community and gripped the nations.
Speaker 5: To Count two murder in the first degree three as
Speaker 5: it relates to the murder of Madison Mogan, how do
Speaker 5: you plead guilty or not guilty guilty as to count three?
Speaker 5: As it relates to murder in the first degree for
Speaker 5: the murder of Kaylee Gunslvus, How do you plead guilty
Speaker 5: or not guilty guilty as to count four? The first
Speaker 5: degree murder of Xana Kernodle a human being? How do
Speaker 5: you plead guilty or not guilty guilty as to count five?
Speaker 5: The first degree murder of Ethan Chapin a human being?
Speaker 5: How do you plead guilty or not guilty guilty?
Speaker 4: We've spent the past two and a half years asking
Speaker 4: the same haunting questions. Could Brian Colberger, a man with
Speaker 4: academic promise and a seemingly bright future, really be responsible
Speaker 4: for one of the most shocking mass murders in recent memory.
Speaker 4: Colberger was arrested on December thirtieth, twenty twenty two, in
Speaker 4: his home in Pennsylvania, following a nationwide manhunt. Investigators tied
Speaker 4: him to the crime scene a house in Moscow, Idaho,
Speaker 4: where four University of Idaho students were brutally murdered. They
Speaker 4: did this using DNA, cell phone data, vehicle tracking, and
Speaker 4: surveillance footage. But even now, the most chilling questions remain, why,
Speaker 4: Why that house, Why those four students? Was this random
Speaker 4: or planned? Was he stalking them? Who was his intended target?
Speaker 4: And now a new question, why did he plead guilty
Speaker 4: after months of denials and courtroom silence? What made him
Speaker 4: change course? Was its strategy, fear, remorse or something else Entirely,
Speaker 4: we know the how and the when, but the why
Speaker 4: still echoes through a grieving community. Until that answer comes,
Speaker 4: all we can do is sift through the theories, searching
Speaker 4: for the truth. Here's Stephanie speaking with crime analyst Body Moven.
Speaker 6: We've been tracking this case closely, candidly.
Speaker 4: We're all a little.
Speaker 6: Shook at this exact moment. It's pretty earth shattering. Brian Coberger,
Speaker 6: who has been accused of murdering for college students at
Speaker 6: the University of Idaho. He has admitted to killing four
Speaker 6: students that he seemingly has no connection to. This clown
Speaker 6: just decides that the gig is up. I've wasted everybody's time,
Speaker 6: all of Idaho's resources. I've been in the press, maybe
Speaker 6: enjoying it every step of the way, and every single
Speaker 6: thing that we thought was possibly maybe not true, or
Speaker 6: we maybe hoped for the sake of humanity, wasn't true.
Speaker 6: It seems as though this riddle has been solved and
Speaker 6: the boogeyman is Brian Coburger, and we are so sad.
Speaker 6: I don't even know where to start with it.
Speaker 7: It's it's so hard to imagine that this guy is,
Speaker 7: this dork, let's be honest, you know, is capable of
Speaker 7: this kind of madness. But I have to say I'm
Speaker 7: not shocked. I'm a little surprised that this happened. But
Speaker 7: there was a May fifteenth hearing and the judge did
Speaker 7: say that the best offer would have to be done
Speaker 7: at the end of June early July, and here we are.
Speaker 7: The last day of June. The defense approached the state
Speaker 7: about a plea and it was accepted.
Speaker 4: Here's journalist an Jeannette Levy with the Law and Crime Network.
Speaker 4: An Jeannette has been following this case from the beginning.
Speaker 4: She's joined by one of our producers, Alison Bankston.
Speaker 1: I just thought to myself, there's no way the state
Speaker 1: of Idaho is going to make a deal on this.
Speaker 1: How could the state of Idaho when they say they've
Speaker 1: got all of this evidence, it appears to be a strong,
Speaker 1: circumstantial case. How could they make a deal in this
Speaker 1: case when you have somebody who they were saying, crossed
Speaker 1: into their state and murdered for college kids, you know,
Speaker 1: some in their sleep, I mean, attacked them in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night. How on earth could you make
Speaker 1: a deal? What message does that send? But then maybe
Speaker 1: Brian Coberger gets scared when when the grim reality of
Speaker 1: going to trial and sitting there for three months with
Speaker 1: all of the media attentions. You know, somebody who appears
Speaker 1: to be very introverted, how does he sit in the
Speaker 1: glare of the media spotlight for three months? You know,
Speaker 1: will he come to the realization that I very well
Speaker 1: could be convicted and at some point in my life
Speaker 1: face the possibility of being walked down that long hallway
Speaker 1: to the firing squad. So part of me was surprised,
Speaker 1: part of me wasn't when he pleaded guilty.
Speaker 8: I completely agree why it happened. Then what are you
Speaker 8: some of your theories on why that decided that this
Speaker 8: is the time for him to plea.
Speaker 1: I believe that Brian Coberger was simply out of options
Speaker 1: and out of time. His request for a continuance had
Speaker 1: been denied. The judge denied his motion to introduce four
Speaker 1: alternate perpetrators at trial. He was asking to point the
Speaker 1: finger at four people, three of whom were in the
Speaker 1: friend group of the victims. One was a guy who
Speaker 1: tried to approach Kaylie at the grocery on an occasion,
Speaker 1: thought she was pretty or whatever. All of these people
Speaker 1: provided DNA, All of these people handed over their phones
Speaker 1: to law enforcement, and so his defenses were narrowing. He
Speaker 1: had no alibi. The judge was not going to give
Speaker 1: the alibi instruction. So that was out. The driving around stargazing,
Speaker 1: no dice there. He had no some other dude did
Speaker 1: it defense. He didn't have that. It was he was
Speaker 1: going to have to go the OJ route. Planted evidence.
Speaker 1: The sheath was planted. It was somebody else in a
Speaker 1: white car that looks just like mine, so he had
Speaker 1: nothing else going on.
Speaker 4: Author and veteran investigative journalist Howard Blum recently wrote a
Speaker 4: piece for Vanity Fairs air Mail magazine exploring the possible
Speaker 4: reasons behind Brian Coberger's surprising decision to plead guilty. Here's
Speaker 4: Howard Now.
Speaker 2: According to my reporting earlier on in the case, Coburger's
Speaker 2: legal team and Taylor had come to the realization that
Speaker 2: their client was not going to win this case, so
Speaker 2: they approached Brian Coberger and said, we'd like you to
Speaker 2: consider taking a plea deal. He spoke with his mother.
Speaker 2: His mother said no. Why she said no? The speculation
Speaker 2: is that she actually at that point believed her son
Speaker 2: was innocent. Fast forward then to last May. Last May,
Speaker 2: there was a special on NBC's Dateline show in Full Transparency.
Speaker 2: I was part of that show, and I appeared on
Speaker 2: the show talking about the case talking head. But what
Speaker 2: they had uncovered was that approximately two hours after the murderers,
Speaker 2: Coburger had made a six a m phone call to
Speaker 2: a number tied to a phone that was in the
Speaker 2: name of Coburger's father, Michael Coburger. My reporting indicated that
Speaker 2: during this fifty four minute phone call nearly an hour,
Speaker 2: just two hours after the murder. I speculate he spoke
Speaker 2: largely with his mother. What was said on that conversation,
Speaker 2: who he spoke to I can only speculate, But according
Speaker 2: to my reporting, he and his mother had this involved conversation.
Speaker 2: And now that it had been revealed to the world,
Speaker 2: now they had made known, the Coburger family had no doubt,
Speaker 2: no doubt that this would come up at trial. They
Speaker 2: would have to go on the stand and answer questions
Speaker 2: about this phone call, probing questions under oath. So when
Speaker 2: this was explained into Coburger by Anne Taylor, now, in
Speaker 2: his own irrational way, something akin to remorse, and he
Speaker 2: felt that he put his family through one version of
Speaker 2: hell already. He did not want to put them in
Speaker 2: legal jeopardy too. Plus he'd be able to save his life.
Speaker 2: So he went to Ann Taylor and said, yeah, let's
Speaker 2: see if we can make a deal. What's now more
Speaker 2: astounding to me? Why did the prosecution take this? As
Speaker 2: I said before, they were holding all the cards. Well, again,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of forced to speculate. You can say that
Speaker 2: every veteran prosecutor knows that every trial is a roll
Speaker 2: of the dice. You never know what one witness out
Speaker 2: there will be harboring reasonable doubt that could just destroy
Speaker 2: your entire case, destroy your chance for a conviction. However,
Speaker 2: what I feel, and I believe this, is that Bill Thompson,
Speaker 2: the prosecutor, after nearly three years on this horrific, dispiriting case,
Speaker 2: I just sort of lost the will, He lost the
Speaker 2: appetite for a courtroom battle, and he was ready to say, okay,
Speaker 2: let's settle it. He goes away to jail forever and
Speaker 2: the state can move on. I can move on, Bill Thompson,
Speaker 2: with my life, and for all I know, he wanted
Speaker 2: to spend the summer of fishing rather than three months
Speaker 2: in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 4: a moment. The families of the victims met with the
Speaker 4: prosecution a week before to discuss the possibility of a plea,
Speaker 4: but not all of the families were in agreement. One
Speaker 4: of those families was the Gonsolves family. Here's victim Kelley
Speaker 4: Gonsalvez's brother Stephen, reflecting on his sister and the impact
Speaker 4: her loss had on those who loved her most. He's
Speaker 4: joined by producer Alison Bankston.
Speaker 3: Was essentially a more intelligent, more sociable, better version of
Speaker 3: me in a lot of ways. You know, being her
Speaker 3: older brother, I kind of had to look out for
Speaker 3: and protect her. And you know, I'll miss the days
Speaker 3: of receiving calls no matter how bad the news was
Speaker 3: from her, you know, breakups, everything like that, just being
Speaker 3: there to be either a shoulder to cry on or
Speaker 3: having to go talk to some stupid boyfriend. Kaylee originally
Speaker 3: she wanted to be a lawyer, which is somehow now ironic,
Speaker 3: but then she kind of switched up into more of
Speaker 3: a general education. She was just applying for jobs knowing
Speaker 3: it was her last semester there at UI, and she
Speaker 3: got an IT job that was down in Austin. Kaylee
Speaker 3: was intelligent. She was very charismatic so to speak, and
Speaker 3: was able to facilitate that in a way where she'd
Speaker 3: be able to maybe get into positions without knowing exactly
Speaker 3: what she was going to do, but find find a
Speaker 3: way to get to the resolution that she was looking for.
Speaker 8: I love that she chased the job out in Austin.
Speaker 8: The ambition is wonderful, true. It truly is Can you
Speaker 8: tell me a little bit about her and Mattie's friendship.
Speaker 8: I know that they had a beautiful, beautiful friendship starting
Speaker 8: from a young age. Can you tell me a little.
Speaker 3: Bit about that they've been best friends since sixth grade.
Speaker 3: I believe it was we were all going to private
Speaker 3: schools back then, and that was really all she wrote.
Speaker 3: They were essentially inseparable their friendship. I'd like to say
Speaker 3: it's something that a lot of people think they have
Speaker 3: but don't. Maddie and Keeley really had each other's back.
Speaker 3: They were always looking out for each other's best interests.
Speaker 3: Mattie was more soft spoken, she was there, I say, kinder,
Speaker 3: and Kaylee was more you know, this is what we want.
Speaker 3: I'm going to find a way to get this. I
Speaker 3: guess that's how I would describe the Yin and yang thing.
Speaker 3: They had. Obviously their similarities, but they also had this
Speaker 3: discrepancy where they were almost polar opposites, but in a
Speaker 3: way that kind of match each other perfect.
Speaker 8: I think that's what makes those type of friendships so great,
Speaker 8: is that you know, if the people are too similar,
Speaker 8: they're going to clash. So just a little bit of
Speaker 8: differences makes the pieces fit together. So that was a
Speaker 8: beautiful way to describe it.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 8: And can you often tell me about their time at
Speaker 8: the University of Idaho, Like what do they love about
Speaker 8: the university? What made them excited about it?
Speaker 3: Sure, I can't speak too much to that because sororities
Speaker 3: are a little bit different than fraternities. I was in
Speaker 3: a fraternity down there. They were obviously in their respective sororities.
Speaker 3: Kaylee got a fee, Maddy got pi fi. They joined
Speaker 3: and they were just heartbroken that they weren't going to
Speaker 3: be in the same sorority. And at that time I
Speaker 3: was rushing as well. I had joined a fraternity. I
Speaker 3: didn't do too well in the fraternity. I'm not great
Speaker 3: with stingent rules. It just didn't work for me. And
Speaker 3: I had left after a year and I told Kaylee,
Speaker 3: I was like, you're gonna hate this. You're gonna absolutely
Speaker 3: hate this. I know your personality. And she ended up
Speaker 3: not necessarily hating it, but hating all the rules in
Speaker 3: the things, the guides you have to follow. And that's
Speaker 3: why they ended up getting an apartment. Kailee, I believe,
Speaker 3: moved out first. She got an apartment at what's called
Speaker 3: the Whites. Actually not far from King Road at all.
Speaker 3: We're talking one hundred feet or so. And then they
Speaker 3: got the house on King Road together.
Speaker 8: With King Road. Do you remember when Kaylee first told
Speaker 8: you that she was going to move in there? It's
Speaker 8: how excited were they to all kind of move into this.
Speaker 3: Place with anything in a big family. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: some big announcement that she was moving into this home.
Speaker 3: In fact, I don't recall if she ever even told me,
Speaker 3: but I know they were happy to finally coalesce once
Speaker 3: again and be together. I can be certain of that.
Speaker 8: Let's get into the plea deal because my heart breaks
Speaker 8: for you guys on that. Where were you, guys when
Speaker 8: you found out that this was going on? Can you
Speaker 8: take me back to that moment when you found out
Speaker 8: that a plea deal had been reached.
Speaker 3: I wasn't involved in this meeting, but from what I've
Speaker 3: heard from my parents, my siblings, there was a meeting
Speaker 3: had on Friday, because we had them weekly with the
Speaker 3: prosecution to go over updates and whatnot with the case.
Speaker 3: And there was a meeting and right at the end
Speaker 3: of the meeting, they kind of slipped it in. They go, hey,
Speaker 3: and if a plea deal were offered, How would you
Speaker 3: feel about that? All of my family obviously answered no,
Speaker 3: We've made our opinion very clear about the plea. There's
Speaker 3: no confusion to be had, and they're like, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And then it would have been June twenty ninth and
Speaker 3: we were out, we were having dinner at a restaurant
Speaker 3: over here, and we found out prosecution had made some
Speaker 3: decisions for us where they were willing to I don't
Speaker 3: want to say sacrifice, but for the lack of a
Speaker 3: better word for souls for permanent daycare, for an adult
Speaker 3: prison daycare. He has commissary, he has a that he
Speaker 3: can work out. He's going to be with a lot
Speaker 3: of similarly minded people. He essentially gets to live rent free,
Speaker 3: no expenses, for the rest of his life. And we
Speaker 3: call that justice. It's insane. They knew we wouldn't agree
Speaker 3: with it, and they made it pretty clear they weren't
Speaker 3: too concerned with how we felt about the whole situation.
Speaker 4: In a letter that the prosecution sent to the families,
Speaker 4: according to new sources, he said that they weighed heavily
Speaker 4: the family and their decision making quote, we cannot fathom
Speaker 4: the toll that this has taken on your family. This
Speaker 4: resolution is our sincere attempt to seek justice for your family.
Speaker 4: This agreement ensures that the defendant will be convicted, will
Speaker 4: spend the rest of his life in prison, and will
Speaker 4: not be able to put you and the other families
Speaker 4: through the uncertainty of decades of post conviction appeals that's.
Speaker 7: Going to be considered. I mean, with a death penalty case,
Speaker 7: there's appeal after appeal after appeal, and as a family
Speaker 7: member of a victim, you're going to want to go
Speaker 7: to those appeals. That's in your to be reliving this
Speaker 7: over and over and over again. And you know, honestly,
Speaker 7: I'm sure they relive it every day right now. They've
Speaker 7: been living in suspended animation for the last two and
Speaker 7: a half years.
Speaker 4: Here's Prosecutor Bill Thompson speaking with KTVW News.
Speaker 10: Every case stands on its own merits, and every case
Speaker 10: that my office is handled since I took office thirty
Speaker 10: three years ago, has been decided based on what is
Speaker 10: unique to that case. I understand and I respect the
Speaker 10: feelings of some of the families of the family members
Speaker 10: who don't agree with our decision. I honestly do, but
Speaker 10: there are also others who feel like they have received
Speaker 10: some comfort and some closure from this, and in the
Speaker 10: end it has to be the prosecutor's decision.
Speaker 4: It was July second, twenty twenty five, a muggy summer
Speaker 4: morning in Boise, Idaho. Temperatures had climbed into the nineties
Speaker 4: as crowds began to gather outside the Ada County Courthouse.
Speaker 4: Members of the press, local onlookers, and out of town
Speaker 4: spectators packed the front steps, hoping to catch a glimpse
Speaker 4: of the man who'd been at the center of a
Speaker 4: national nightmare. For nearly three years. The question of who
Speaker 4: killed four University of Idaho's students had loomed heavy over Moscow,
Speaker 4: Idaho and beyond. And now the man accused of that crime,
Speaker 4: thirty year old Brian Christopher Coburger, was about to walk
Speaker 4: into the court and plead guilty to all five counts.
Speaker 4: He was facing four counts of first degree murder and
Speaker 4: one count of burglary. The moment was historic and emotional.
Speaker 4: It also raised a new wave of questions. Here again,
Speaker 4: producer Alison Bankston with Lawn Crime journalists an Jeannette Levy,
Speaker 4: you actually.
Speaker 8: Were at Ryan Colberger's plea hearing.
Speaker 3: You had a really good feat I did. It was crazy.
Speaker 8: You can paint a picture for me what it was
Speaker 8: like going into that plea hearing on that Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Going into the plea hearing, it was very intense because
Speaker 1: you knew that Xanna's mother supported the plea agreement. Again,
Speaker 1: solve family, of course did not support the plea agreement,
Speaker 1: but Matti Mogan's family supported it, as did Ethan Shapin.
Speaker 1: So it was very heavy. You're walking in there and
Speaker 1: you know that you're walking into something where there's a
Speaker 1: lot of contention. And I walked in and we were
Speaker 1: told exactly where to sit. And then Brian Coburger walked in.
Speaker 1: I could tell immediately his hair was kind of buzzed
Speaker 1: on the sides. You know, he looked like he was
Speaker 1: prepared for a big event, shirt and tie. Of course.
Speaker 1: Khaki's his mother Mary Anne, and father Michael were over
Speaker 1: to my left. The victims were all over on the
Speaker 1: other side of the court room to the right. He
Speaker 1: came in no restraints, sat down, talked to his lawyers
Speaker 1: very briefly, and then the hearings started. Bill Thompson in
Speaker 1: court went through what he called a written factual basis,
Speaker 1: and this was really them presenting to the court what
Speaker 1: they believed the evidence would show a trial. And he
Speaker 1: said basically that, you know, Brian Coburger bought this k
Speaker 1: bar knife on Amazon using a gift card of all things,
Speaker 1: in March, and then in late June or early July,
Speaker 1: he moves to Pullman, Washington to pursue his PhD in
Speaker 1: criminology and criminal justice, and for some reason, Brian Coburger
Speaker 1: starts making these trips to the Moscow area. And you know,
Speaker 1: they have this evidence that shows that on twenty three
Speaker 1: occasions between July and the week before the murders, Brian
Speaker 1: Coberger's phone is within a football field of that house
Speaker 1: on King Road. It was always late at night, between
Speaker 1: ten pm and four am, painting this picture of a nightstalker,
Speaker 1: somebody who was kind of circling this neighborhood and possibly
Speaker 1: this house like a vulture looking for prey. And he
Speaker 1: said basically that Brian Coburger on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: went over to King Road in his Hyundai A Lantra,
Speaker 1: circled the area, then parked in an upper parking lot
Speaker 1: above the house at King Road.
Speaker 4: Here's Prosecutor Bill Thompson in the courtroom.
Speaker 10: Entered the residence, went to the third floor and with
Speaker 10: a knife killed Madison Bogan and Kyle Getzalos. The defendant
Speaker 10: as he left that room for whatever reason, ended up
Speaker 10: leaving or the sheath for a k bar knife was
Speaker 10: left on the bed next to Madison Molden's body, and
Speaker 10: I can jump ahead. That sheath was tested by the
Speaker 10: Iaho State Police forensic clab and singles male DNA was
Speaker 10: found on the snap of that sheaf. The state's evidence
Speaker 10: would show that Xana Canodle was still awake at this time,
Speaker 10: in fact, had taken a door dash order not long
Speaker 10: before this started. Her room was not on the third floor,
Speaker 10: it was on the second floor on the west side.
Speaker 10: As the defendant was either coming down the stairs or leaving,
Speaker 10: he encountered Xanna and he ended up killing her also
Speaker 10: with a large knife. He's in Chapin. Xana's boyfriend was
Speaker 10: asleep in their bedroom in her bedroom and the defendant
Speaker 10: killed him as well with a large big knife. Each
Speaker 10: victim suffered multiple wounds.
Speaker 1: He walked through the kitchen out the backslider door. They
Speaker 1: find him. In Pennsylvania, you know they're surveilling him. And
Speaker 1: then his vehicle is parked in his parents' garage and
Speaker 1: they find a bucket next to the vehicle and they
Speaker 1: say basically they took that vehicle apart and that it
Speaker 1: had been cleaned. It was spotless. They also searched his
Speaker 1: apartment and they said it was spartan. There was no
Speaker 1: evidence of any of these students, no blood, no DNA
Speaker 1: belonging to any of these victims in either his car
Speaker 1: or in his apartment. There was no social media connection,
Speaker 1: There was no connection between Brian Coburger and these victims. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, what he outlined sound like something out of
Speaker 1: a horror movie. This is a real life horror movie.
Speaker 1: What struck me was the fact that Brian Coburger barely
Speaker 1: blinked the entire time that Bill Thompson was going through
Speaker 1: his statement of facts about what they believed the evidence
Speaker 1: at trial would have proved. And he barely blinked. Brian
Speaker 1: Coberger barely blinked. It was as if he was transfixed
Speaker 1: by what Bill Thompson was saying. But he seemed almost
Speaker 1: like in a trance, And I was like, is he
Speaker 1: listening so intently to see if Bill Thompson gets every
Speaker 1: fact right, you know, was he reliving the night as
Speaker 1: Bill Thompson was going through all of this information? So
Speaker 1: I was stunned by that.
Speaker 8: Just the idea of him listening to Bill Thompson's factual
Speaker 8: basis and like reliving it is such a creepy thought.
Speaker 8: Oh my god. I think you're right though. I think
Speaker 8: that probably is what he was doing. And did we
Speaker 8: learn anything new from his written factual basis? I know
Speaker 8: that's it was almost like reciting the Affiday that his
Speaker 8: written factual basis.
Speaker 1: There really wasn't a lot of new information that we learned.
Speaker 1: I think that people were expecting a little more meat
Speaker 1: on the bone. I mean, obviously what he painted was
Speaker 1: a pretty compelling picture as far as circumstantial evidence goes.
Speaker 1: But I think that people were expecting maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more information about the crime and how it occurred.
Speaker 1: You know, you've been investigating it for more than two
Speaker 1: years now. There has to be more evidence. There has
Speaker 1: to be more that they were going to present a
Speaker 1: trial that they just haven't talked about yet. You know,
Speaker 1: the cards that they're keeping close to the vest for
Speaker 1: whatever reason.
Speaker 4: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 4: a moment. Here's crime analyst, body move in and conversation
Speaker 4: with former homicide prosecutor Jarrett Farantino. Farantino is a seasoned
Speaker 4: trial attorney who's handled hundreds of plea deals over the
Speaker 4: course of his career. He has prosecuted some of the
Speaker 4: most complex and high stakes cases in the country, including
Speaker 4: multiple death penalty trials.
Speaker 9: If I was the prosecutor, I would want an elocution.
Speaker 9: I would want Colberger to say affirmatively I killed Xanna, Maddie, Ethan,
Speaker 9: and Kayley. I want to hear him say it. And
Speaker 9: that could be part of the plea agreement.
Speaker 7: And that would happen at sentencing, like right before sentencing, right.
Speaker 9: It could, and it could happen in response to the victims' families.
Speaker 9: He could apologize to them. He could acknowledge that he
Speaker 9: did it. We may never know why. And I think
Speaker 9: some of the things I'm seeing online, they're asking is
Speaker 9: it an Alford plea? You know that I've heard that too.
Speaker 7: Why do people think that?
Speaker 6: What does that mean?
Speaker 9: So that that's the name of the case out of
Speaker 9: North Carolina from nineteen seventy, the Supreme Court basically said
Speaker 9: a guilty. TLEA could be accepted if a defendant doesn't
Speaker 9: admit the criminal act. As long as they're saying I
Speaker 9: acknowledge there's enough evidence against me, and I'm going to
Speaker 9: likely be convicted. You can go out. It's exactly how
Speaker 9: they got out. But those now, if I'm the prosecutor
Speaker 9: in this case, if I'm Bill Thompson, I don't accept
Speaker 9: an alford. I'm not taking death off the table until
Speaker 9: you bring some closure and some accountability to these families.
Speaker 4: Does Coberger or anyone who is in his position, do
Speaker 4: they need to or is it customary for them to
Speaker 4: give details of X happened and then why happened? Or
Speaker 4: are they under no obligation to explain the events of
Speaker 4: the night.
Speaker 11: He has the right to stay silent. My hope is
Speaker 11: he apologizes for what he did. He could explain why
Speaker 11: he did what he did. I don't expect that, though.
Speaker 12: I think he's going to be pretty tight lippt as
Speaker 12: to why, because you know, it's one thing to admit
Speaker 12: these crimes, it's another thing to admit these strange fantasies
Speaker 12: that you're carrying out.
Speaker 4: For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow
Speaker 4: us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Massacre
Speaker 4: is produced by Stephanie Leideker, Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo and
Speaker 4: me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Twas,
Speaker 4: Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masacre is a production
Speaker 4: of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this,
Speaker 4: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 4: to your favorite shows.