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Speaker 1: Newly uncovered posts made by an online forum may give

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Speaker 1: us insight into Brian Coberger's character.

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Speaker 2: Between November of two thousand and nine and February twenty twelve,

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Speaker 2: while Coburger was a teenager, he allegedly made one hundred

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Speaker 2: and eighteen posts, and in one of them, he said

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Speaker 2: he felt no emotion and said quote, I can say

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Speaker 2: and do whatever I want with little remorse.

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Speaker 3: This is the Idaho Massacre. A production of KAT Studios

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Speaker 3: and iHeartRadio episode seven in the Dark. I'm Courtney Armstrong,

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Speaker 3: a television producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane,

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Speaker 3: and Connor Powell. In July of twenty eleven, a user

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Speaker 3: going by the name Xar posted on an online chat

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Speaker 3: forum that quote the ringing in his ears and the

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Speaker 3: fuzz in his vision made him feel that all the

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Speaker 3: demons in his head were mocking him. The chilling statement

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Speaker 3: is just one of more than one hundred messages believed

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Speaker 3: to be authored by a then teenage Brian Cooeberger on

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Speaker 3: the website tapatok. In post after post, Coburger claimed to

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Speaker 3: be suffering from a little known neurological syndrome called visual snow.

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Speaker 3: The rare condition has a range of disorienting symptoms, but

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Speaker 3: the most common is constantly seeing snow like flex or

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Speaker 3: black and white scattered dots, like the static on an

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Speaker 3: old analog television.

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Speaker 4: I see a large intensity of black, yellow, white fuzz.

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Speaker 4: It makes my mind fizzle and I could barely keep

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Speaker 4: in the bounds of reality.

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Speaker 3: Coburger wrote that his condition led to anxiety, depression, and

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Speaker 3: quote crazy thoughts. These posts paint a picture of a

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Speaker 3: deeply who would later turn to heroine and develop an

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Speaker 3: obsessive interest in violent criminals. Coburger's dark mind and law

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Speaker 3: enforcement background has led many to draw similarities to other

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Speaker 3: serial killers like Dennis Radar. Radar dubbed himself quote the

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Speaker 3: BTK for his fondness to bind, torture, and kill his victims,

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Speaker 3: and Joseph James DiAngelo, otherwise known as the Golden State Killer.

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Speaker 3: Both had a history of disturbing thoughts and an intense

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Speaker 3: interest in law enforcement. So how does Brian Coburger fit

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Speaker 3: into the larger history of killers. What in his background

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Speaker 3: could have potentially led Coburger down a path to murder?

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Speaker 3: How did he go from someone who caught criminals to

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Speaker 3: potentially becoming a killer himself, or could he have potentially

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Speaker 3: evolved into a killer as he descended deeper into the

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Speaker 3: dark world of criminology. When investigators released It's the Probable

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Speaker 3: Cause Affidavid in the University of Idaho murders, the nineteen

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Speaker 3: page document laid out much of the evidence linking Coburger

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Speaker 3: to the crime. According to police, the twenty eight year

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Speaker 3: old criminology student's DNA was on a knife sheath found

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Speaker 3: at the murder scene, and a white Atlanta like the

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Speaker 3: one Coburger drove, was seen driving past the home on

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Speaker 3: King Road multiple times. Coburger's phone also repeatedly pinged on

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Speaker 3: towers near the house in the weeks before the Grizzly murders.

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Speaker 3: But one key piece of the puzzle was conspicuously missing

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Speaker 3: from the Probable Cause Affidavid. Motive There's Jeff and Stephanie.

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Speaker 5: Motive is an essential part of the criminal justice process.

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Speaker 5: Its official definition is the moving course, the impulse, or

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Speaker 5: the desire that induces criminal action on the part of

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Speaker 5: the accused. Basically, why did this crime or murder happen?

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Speaker 5: As rational humans, we crave a justification for otherwise senseless

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Speaker 5: and horrible acts.

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Speaker 6: I mean, it's a very important piece of the court process,

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Speaker 6: and it's not a requirement to get a conviction, but look,

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Speaker 6: jurors really want to make sense of a case.

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Speaker 5: This case is so fascinating, not only because of the

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Speaker 5: sheer atrocity of the murders, but also because of the

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Speaker 5: accused trajectory and how complex it is. Up until December

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Speaker 5: twenty twenty two, Brian Coberger seemingly had wanted to be

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Speaker 5: a hero. He told his friends he had helped to

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Speaker 5: study high profile criminals and aspired to help catch quote

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Speaker 5: unquote bad guys.

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Speaker 6: This is the part that doesn't totally make sense about

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Speaker 6: this case. How and why does Coburger go from that

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Speaker 6: to being accused of brutally murdering four people.

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Speaker 5: I speak for the general public when I say we're

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Speaker 5: all immensely curious.

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Speaker 6: I guess, depending upon what is revealed at trial, we

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Speaker 6: may get a motive at some point, but as of

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Speaker 6: right now, there really doesn't appear to be one.

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Speaker 5: So it raises the question was Brian Coberger born a killer?

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Speaker 5: Or did something happen in his life to turn him

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Speaker 5: into a monster.

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Speaker 6: And one thing where it's noting listen, don't officially know

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Speaker 6: about Coburger's mental state, but what we do know is

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Speaker 6: what he said about his symptoms around his condition called

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Speaker 6: visual snow, and that's probably a pretty decent place to start.

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Speaker 1: Understanding visual snow is still not fully well understood. A

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Speaker 1: lot of how it works or how it's affecting the

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Speaker 1: brain is under kind of hypothesis.

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Speaker 3: Coberger wrote on the TAPA Talk for Him that his

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Speaker 3: visual snow symptoms began in September of two thousand and nine,

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Speaker 3: when he was just fourteen years old. He admitted the

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Speaker 3: condition changed him, saying he became more anxious and developed

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Speaker 3: a sense of derealization and hopelessness.

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Speaker 1: I think for some people who have high anxiety over

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Speaker 1: it or want to get rid of it, that's really

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Speaker 1: the frustrating part, because we don't have a cure for it.

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Speaker 3: Joseph Allen is a doctor of optometry who has studied

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Speaker 3: visual snow tho suffers from the rare condition. Here he

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Speaker 3: is speaking with Jeff.

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Speaker 5: You obviously never treated Brian Coburger or know his state

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Speaker 5: of mind. But for someone who's maybe not in the

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Speaker 5: best state of mind, how do you think throwing visual

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Speaker 5: snow on top of that would affect someone.

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Speaker 1: So there is associations with visual snow with depression and anxiety.

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Speaker 1: Those probably are the two most consistent ones on top

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Speaker 1: of headaches. Like a lot of people who have visual

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Speaker 1: snow usually have a history of migraines. It's like almost

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Speaker 1: sixty percent of people who have visual snow syndrome also

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Speaker 1: have a history of migraine headaches. You're somebody with visual

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Speaker 1: SNOW and you're seeing visual phenomenon like this that you

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Speaker 1: can't explain that doctors maybe are being dismissive about, and

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Speaker 1: you have other forms of anxiety or depression. I think

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Speaker 1: it can really become more isolating. We know isolation Bru's

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Speaker 1: mental illness. I think there is maybe a higher risk

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Speaker 1: factor for some of them.

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Speaker 3: In posts on the online visual Snow forum, Coburger suggests

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Speaker 3: he turned to the internet in two thousand and nine

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Speaker 3: in hopes of finding help, but in the absence of

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Speaker 3: answers to his questions. Coburger said he felt like the

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Speaker 3: demons in his head were mocking him. As a result,

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Speaker 3: he grew distant from the people around him. In a

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Speaker 3: July twenty eleven post, Coburger wrote, quote, I have had

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Speaker 3: this horrible depersonalization in my life for almost two years.

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Speaker 3: As I hug my family, I look into their faces,

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Speaker 3: I see nothing. It is like I'm looking at a

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Speaker 3: video game but less. I am blank. I have no opinion,

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Speaker 3: I have no emotion, I have nothing. This type of

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Speaker 3: disconnection is common for people suffering from eye issues, particularly

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Speaker 3: visual snow Here Again, Doctor Joseph Allen, speaking with.

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Speaker 1: Jeff I have identified as having visual snow I fit

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Speaker 1: the diagnosis requirements. It's something that I've struggled with since

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, Like I can think of like

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Speaker 1: maybe nine years old. Third grade is when I first,

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Speaker 1: I think, became just more perceptually aware of what was

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Speaker 1: happening with my eyes. But like most people who have

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Speaker 1: visual snow they don't either no one talks about it

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Speaker 1: or we just sort of, you know, you grow up

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Speaker 1: with it all your life and you just sort of

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Speaker 1: assume that's how everybody sees.

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Speaker 5: So did you go into optometry because you felt like

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Speaker 5: you had eye issues?

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Speaker 1: I think there is definitely some poll there. At a

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Speaker 1: young age, around age seven age, I got thick glasses,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately I think what drove me to be in

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Speaker 1: the profession is because I got contact lenses. Getting contact

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Speaker 1: lenses was a lot allowed me to play sports and

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Speaker 1: that helped me make friends and having that boost of

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Speaker 1: self confidence at age of thirteen.

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Speaker 5: It's interesting that you bring up how getting your eyes

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Speaker 5: kind of taken care of really opened up a lot

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Speaker 5: of doors for you socially and kind of changed your

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Speaker 5: life for the better. Because Brian Coburger struggled socially his

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Speaker 5: whole life. He didn't connect with girls, he didn't really

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Speaker 5: have a lot of friends, and so it makes it

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Speaker 5: you wonder, is it maybe because he couldn't see properly,

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Speaker 5: Like he wasn't connecting with the world the way he felt,

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Speaker 5: you know, he could have been.

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Speaker 1: I think eyesight is super important. Like for my case,

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Speaker 1: sports like kids make much better social connections if they're

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Speaker 1: involved in activities with other kids. And for me, it

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Speaker 1: was hard to play football. You can't really play football

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Speaker 1: with pick glasses on. So for me, getting into contact

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Speaker 1: lenses really was that key to opening up that whole

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Speaker 1: other stream of life for me.

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Speaker 3: But by his teenage years, Brian Coberger wrote on Tapa Talk,

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Speaker 3: he wasn't making personal connections with family or friends. Instead,

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Speaker 3: his mind was moving in a darker direction in posts.

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Speaker 3: As a then sixteen year old, Coburger wrote that his

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Speaker 3: visual snow condition made him feel like a quote organic

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Speaker 3: sack of meat with no self worth. He berated himself

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Speaker 3: for his expanding array of mental struggles that ranged from

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Speaker 3: depression to delusions of grandeur, to anxiety to constant thoughts

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Speaker 3: of suicide. Coburger even wrote lyrics to a rap song saying,

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Speaker 3: you are not my equal. You are evil, but I

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Speaker 3: am the devil. But now I am going regal. Don't

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Speaker 3: fuck with us again. Joseph Allen, there.

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Speaker 1: Is no evidence right now that visual snow syndrome would

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Speaker 1: cause mental illness, but it is I think in his case,

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Speaker 1: if he has mental illness and then a visual snow

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Speaker 1: on top of it, it's like augmenting it. It's giving

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Speaker 1: him more, maybe more reasons to lose grip on his

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Speaker 1: own sense of reality. Perhaps there is some reported on

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Speaker 1: top of depression of anxiety, there is something called depersonalization

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Speaker 1: and derealization which is associated with it. Depersonalization kind of

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Speaker 1: refers to these feelings that you've detached from your physical

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Speaker 1: body or even from kind of your own mind, and

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Speaker 1: so people will feel that they are robotic or being

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Speaker 1: maybe controlled by somebody else. And there's this concept of derealization,

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Speaker 1: which I like to think of it as the Matrix syndrome.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever seen that movie The Matrix, where people

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Speaker 1: feel like the world around them isn't real, they feel

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Speaker 1: that it's artificial. And you can imagine if you have

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Speaker 1: visual snow syndrome and you see this static all the time,

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Speaker 1: you could be like, well, maybe my body is just

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Speaker 1: like a video game character, and somebody else outside of

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Speaker 1: this make believe world I live in is actually controlling me.

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Speaker 1: So I think if you have already existing mental illness,

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Speaker 1: a poor grip on reality, a poor social structure, and

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Speaker 1: then maybe having these feelings of depersonalization derealization, then it's

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Speaker 1: it's easier maybe to whose emotional connection between other people

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Speaker 1: and even maybe what's right and wrong.

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Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in

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Speaker 3: a moment. By twenty eleven, Brian Kolberger was desperate for

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Speaker 3: a solution. The effects of visual Snow were weighing on him.

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Speaker 3: He wrote on the online forum that he visited a

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Speaker 3: neurologist and took antimigraine medicine. Neither worked. Coburger later adopted

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Speaker 3: a strict diet, removing sugar, bread, wheat, soy, and other

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Speaker 3: carbohydrates from his meals. High school friends described him during

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Speaker 3: this time as obsessive about his new health regime, which

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Speaker 3: did help him lose a significant amount of weight, at

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Speaker 3: least one hundred pounds, if not more, and according to

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Speaker 3: his own words, Coburger began to improve. Coburger wrote on

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Speaker 3: the tap talk forum in February Worry of twenty twelve

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Speaker 3: that he had accepted his visual snow and that the

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Speaker 3: condition no longer scared him. However, in his final post,

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Speaker 3: he also said quote, I feel like coming to terms

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Speaker 3: could be a bad thing, though again Stephanie and Jeff.

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Speaker 6: Between twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, Coburger went through this

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Speaker 6: huge transformation after several years of feeling very down and depressed.

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Speaker 6: According to reports, he really started to turn things around

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Speaker 6: and turned a corner. He adopted a new diet, he

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Speaker 6: started to lose a ton of weight, and he was

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Speaker 6: apparently much more happy about life and seemingly more optimistic.

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Speaker 5: But it's also around this time that he gets kicked

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Speaker 5: out of the law enforcement Educational Vocation program and ends

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Speaker 5: up having to finish high school remotely in the spring

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Speaker 5: of twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 6: This is a pretty big deal, and according to multiple friends,

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Speaker 6: this turmoil really spun him in a dangerous direction. He

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Speaker 6: started to use drugs. Apparently he started with marijuana, but

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Speaker 6: then that really escalated to heroin, which is a huge leap.

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Speaker 5: One of his friends, Rich Pasqual, who worked with Coburger

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Speaker 5: at the pizza shop, said that by twenty thirteen, Coburger

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Speaker 5: was a full on heroin addict, but he was eventually

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Speaker 5: able to kick the habit, going to rehab and enrolling

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Speaker 5: at the Northampton Community College.

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Speaker 6: It does seem that Coburger has a bit of a

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Speaker 6: history of locking in and almost obsessing about certain parts

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Speaker 6: of his life, whether it's the visual snow or drugs,

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Speaker 6: his diet, and in some ways, even his own criminal behavior.

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Speaker 5: This type of compulsive behavior is something we see with

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Speaker 5: other serial or prolific killers.

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Speaker 3: After years of being socially detached, addicted to drugs, and suicidal,

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Speaker 3: Coburger appears to have found a new purpose after rehab,

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Speaker 3: an intense fascination with the criminal mind. This fascination led

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Speaker 3: Coburger to study at nearby Dessalge University and ultimately under

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Speaker 3: the renowned on forensic psychologists, doctor Catherine Ramsland.

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Speaker 7: Do you have to study the victim and you have

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Speaker 7: to know things about offenders? So you have to study

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Speaker 7: offenders and you have to know the kinds of things

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Speaker 7: they might do.

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Speaker 3: Ramsland is one of, if not the leading expert on

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Speaker 3: serial killers and murderers. She's written more than sixty books

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Speaker 3: and hundreds of articles on violent criminals. On December twenty second,

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, producer Jeff Shane conducted an interview with

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Speaker 3: Ramsland for a different project. Just eight days later, her

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Speaker 3: former student Brian Coberger would be arrested. In hindsight, their

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Speaker 3: conversation is chilling.

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Speaker 5: What can you tell me about people who commit crimes?

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Speaker 7: So you're looking at the body and the crime scene,

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Speaker 7: maybe the whole geographic analysis in terms of their comfort

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Speaker 7: zone and et cetera. But you're also looking at what

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Speaker 7: do we know about offenders to apply to this, and

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Speaker 7: then you want to build as detailed biography of the

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Speaker 7: person as you possibly can. It's all going to be

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Speaker 7: probability based, more likely to have education than not education,

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Speaker 7: or more likely to be compelled sexually because of certain rituals,

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Speaker 7: and nothing missing. But if things are always missing, they're

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Speaker 7: all more likely to be motivated by greed or any

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Speaker 7: eliminating witnesses not really interested in the murder itself, more

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Speaker 7: interested in eliminating witnesses while they get off with the goods.

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Speaker 7: But if the victim is mutilated in some way, overkill

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Speaker 7: things like that, that's going to tell you a different

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Speaker 7: story about the offender. So a lot of it's going

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Speaker 7: to be based on what you're finding at the scene.

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Speaker 7: There's a retrospective profile and a prospective profile, and too

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Speaker 7: many people are doing the prospective profiling, and that is

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Speaker 7: more of a risk evaluation based on a pattern of behaviors.

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Speaker 7: Retrospective profile is what do we see right here at

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Speaker 7: the crime scene today that will tell us something about

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Speaker 7: this offender. And if we have several scenes that we

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Speaker 7: think are related to the same offender, what do those

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Speaker 7: various scenes tell us about this person.

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Speaker 3: Ramsland has refused to comment publicly on her former graduate student,

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Speaker 3: but she is most famous for her extensive research and

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Speaker 3: books about the serial killer Dennis Radar, most commonly known

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Speaker 3: as the BTK. Dessal's University is known for its hands

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Speaker 3: on criminology program and as an undergraduate criminology student. Coburger

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Speaker 3: would have studied Radar. As a graduate student of Ramsland.

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Speaker 3: It's likely Coburger would have studied Radar in depth. He

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Speaker 3: may have even had access to Ramsland's primary research information

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Speaker 3: about both real killers and Dennis Radar.

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Speaker 5: Tell me about BTK and how modern day criminals might

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Speaker 5: have evolved since then.

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Speaker 7: These days, serial killers quite often are a little more sophisticated.

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Speaker 7: They're aware of you know, the investigators are looking at patterns.

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Speaker 7: But even back in you know, the seventies, they sometimes

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Speaker 7: they would have a ritual, so there would be similarities.

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Speaker 7: But then they'll pick up somebody a victim of opportunity,

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Speaker 7: weren't even looking, but they had their murder kits, so

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Speaker 7: why not go for this? And then it's completely different.

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Speaker 7: I remember Dennis Raider, for example, the BTK killer who

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Speaker 7: so nineteen seventies into the eighties, and this final one

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Speaker 7: of the ten he killed was in nineteen ninety one,

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Speaker 7: and by nineteen ninety one he realized how the FBI

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Speaker 7: approached all this, and so instead of killing people in

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Speaker 7: houses that he entered, he took a couple victims and

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Speaker 7: dumped them outside. One victim he called it in none

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Speaker 7: of the others. Several of them he wrote notes to

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Speaker 7: the newspaper, but not all of them, so that's not

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Speaker 7: a He's not a particularly sophisticated person. But he did

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Speaker 7: change things up a little bit. He murdered a family

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Speaker 7: of four, then he murdered a single woman. They didn't

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Speaker 7: connect them at all because even though the bodies all

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Speaker 7: were bound, he'd used different knots on the single woman

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Speaker 7: than he had on the family. And he didn't do

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Speaker 7: that purposely. He just liked knots and he was mixing

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Speaker 7: it up.

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Speaker 3: How much Coburger studied or understood about serial killers like

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Speaker 3: Radar isn't clear, but there are unique and disturbing similarities

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Speaker 3: between Coburger and Radar. Both are accused of committing their

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Speaker 3: murderers while pursuing degrees in criminal justice. Radar was earning

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Speaker 3: an undergraduate degree from which tosstatem as he embarked on

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Speaker 3: his killing spree, and as doctor Ramslan mentioned in her interview,

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Speaker 3: Radar mixed up his killing profile to evade investigators. When

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Speaker 3: Coburger was arrested, he was wearing rubber gloves and sorting

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Speaker 3: his trash into smaller plastic bags in an apparent effort

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Speaker 3: to prevent police from collecting evidence against him. In an

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Speaker 3: interview with TMZ, Dennis Radar said he saw similarities between

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Speaker 3: Coburger and himself, the convicted killer of tens, that he

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Speaker 3: believed Coburger, like himself, was motivated to kill by the

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Speaker 3: fantasy of homicide. Again, Stephanie and Jeff.

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Speaker 5: This is really the scariest question about Coburger. We know

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Speaker 5: that he told people from a young age that he

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Speaker 5: wanted to catch violent criminals and be a police officer.

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Speaker 5: Later at WSU, he said he wanted to help rural

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Speaker 5: police departments solve crimes. So was this all talk just

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Speaker 5: a front or a ruse to get in with investigators?

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Speaker 5: Did he want to figure out how they worked so

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Speaker 5: he could operate around them. Given what we know about

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Speaker 5: his teenageers, his feelings of isolation, and the demons in

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Speaker 5: his had, is it possible that he had a long

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Speaker 5: standing desire to kill.

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Speaker 6: So with that in mind, are you saying that possibly

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Speaker 6: studying criminology was part of the plan to learn how

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Speaker 6: to kill people without getting caught exactly, or I also

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Speaker 6: wonder if he has this personality type that's a bit obsessive.

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Speaker 6: Was it possible that he's studying criminals at school because

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Speaker 6: he's been obsessed with crime and fantasizing about being a.

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Speaker 3: Killer his whole life.

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Speaker 6: Or is it because he was studying criminology and about

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Speaker 6: killers that he began to fantasize about it.

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Speaker 5: That could make sense, and he definitely could have used

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Speaker 5: what he learned from his criminology studies to help him

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Speaker 5: get away with murder, at least for a little while.

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Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another break. Brian Colberger's classmates and

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Speaker 3: professors described him as intellectual, though at times arrogant and

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Speaker 3: a bit of a know at all. One former professor

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Speaker 3: from Dsal's University went further and said Coburger was a

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Speaker 3: brilliant student. Michelle Bulger, an associate professor of criminology, wrote

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Speaker 3: a letter of recommendation for Colberger's PhD application, describing him

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Speaker 3: as perfectly professional in all their interactions. She also advised

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Speaker 3: Coburger with his master's thesis on script theory, which focused

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Speaker 3: on how and why criminals commit their crimes. As part

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Speaker 3: of Coberger's deep dive into script theory, the idea that

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Speaker 3: people largely fall into patterns or scripts, Bulger oversaw the

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Speaker 3: creation of Coburger's request for criminals to fill out a

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Speaker 3: survey on Reddit about their thoughts and emotions while committing

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Speaker 3: a crime. Stephanie and Jeff.

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Speaker 6: This Reddit survey is just so interesting. Yes, while his

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Speaker 6: former professor says that type of work is very common

370
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Speaker 6: amongst criminology students, and the specific nature of the questions

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Speaker 6: and what he would later be accused of certainly raises

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Speaker 6: some serious questions.

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Speaker 5: We looked up the original survey. He posted it on Wednesday,

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Speaker 5: June first, twenty twenty two, which was two hundred and

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Speaker 5: twelve days before Xana, Ethan, Madison and Kayley were murdered.

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Speaker 5: Here's what it said. Hello, my name is Brian, and

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Speaker 5: I am inviting you to participate in a research project

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Speaker 5: that seeks to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence

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Speaker 5: decision making when committing a crime. In particular, this study

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Speaker 5: seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense,

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Speaker 5: with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience.

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Speaker 5: The questions read, did you prepare for the crime before

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Speaker 5: leaving your home? Please detail what you were thinking and

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Speaker 5: feeling at this point after committing the crime. What were

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Speaker 5: you thinking and feeling. How did you travel to and

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Speaker 5: enter the location that the crime occurred. After arriving, what

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Speaker 5: steps did you take prior to locating the victim or target?

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Speaker 5: Please detail your thoughts and feelings. How did you leave

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Speaker 5: the scene. Why did you choose that victim or target

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Speaker 5: over others before making your move? How did you approach

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Speaker 5: the victim or target? Please detail what you were thinking

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Speaker 5: and feeling. How did you accomplish your goal? Please explain

393
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Speaker 5: what you were thinking and feeling before leaving? Is there

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Speaker 5: anything else you did?

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Speaker 6: Jeff, what you said about this type of survey is

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Speaker 6: pretty typical of graduate students, but it did get us

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Speaker 6: curious if he had used any of this information in

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Speaker 6: his thesis, and it doesn't appear that he did so.

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Speaker 5: Maybe he didn't get enough participants and scrapped the idea,

400
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Speaker 5: or he.

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Speaker 6: Took the survey collected the information, it was a ruse

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Speaker 6: that he was using it for his thesis and instead used.

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Speaker 3: It to plot murder. If Colberger was potentially using his

404
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 3: academic opportunities to learn how to kill, one skill, he

405
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Speaker 3: potentially appears to have employed murdering Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna, and

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Speaker 3: Ethan is the ruse.

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Speaker 8: A ruse is something that the killer presents to calm

408
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Speaker 8: the intended victim. While the killer knows he's going to

409
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Speaker 8: be murdering them, he doesn't want them to know anything

410
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Speaker 8: violent is going to happen to them, so he'll use

411
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Speaker 8: a ruse to get them, perhaps to go with them

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Speaker 8: to a more secluded place. But even then, if he

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Speaker 8: does something, he may present another ruse even as he's

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Speaker 8: binding them, say I'm not gonna argue, I just need

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Speaker 8: to do this. And it will vary with some of

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Speaker 8: these different killers. But even when a person suspects something wrong,

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Speaker 8: if the killer is not in the position to do

418
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Speaker 8: everything they need to do, then they will try to

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Speaker 8: calm them once more, and it'll be done by a ruse,

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Speaker 8: which is usually what they say to them in the

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Speaker 8: kindness way possible, and hopefully it'll be believed by the victim.

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Speaker 3: Kevin Sullivan is an investigative journalist and author of several

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Speaker 3: books about the serial killer Ted Bundy. He sees several

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Speaker 3: similarities between Coberger and Bundy, who confess to killing at

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Speaker 3: least thirty people in seven states. According to the problem

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Speaker 3: Will Cause Affidavid roommate Dylan Mortenson heard crying coming from

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Speaker 3: Xana Kernodle's room, and then a male voice saying, quote,

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Speaker 3: it's okay, I'm going to help you. This effort by

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Speaker 3: a killer to reassure a victim is common in pre

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Speaker 3: plan murders.

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Speaker 8: BTK did this. He would try to assure people that

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Speaker 8: like nothing was going to happen, or it was for

433
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 8: a different reason or whatever. A lot of these people

434
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Speaker 8: do this, but the key is is to get them calm.

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Speaker 8: I mean, the mob does this. Sometimes the mob will

436
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 8: go out and say let's go get spent the whole

437
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 8: night with somebody or five of them and then they

438
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 8: said let's go get breakfast or whatever. End up go

439
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 8: and immediately killed this guy. And it was planned from

440
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 8: the start. But what was the ruse in that case? Hey,

441
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 8: these guys like me, we're friends. They're thinking me at

442
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 8: the breakfast and the next thing you know, he's got

443
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 8: a wire around his neck or he's been shot on

444
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 8: the head.

445
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 3: Some killers use the ruse in a tense moment to

446
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 3: calm a panicking victim. Others, like this serial killer Ted Bundy,

447
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 3: would create elaborate stories to trick on suspecting targets.

448
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 8: He said that he knew that he was hunting girls

449
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 8: that were from normal, good families, and that they would

450
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 8: be more likely to help somebody. If they were either

451
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 8: on crutches and fumbling with books, or they needed directions

452
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 8: or something else was asked of them, they would be

453
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 8: completely unsuspecting.

454
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy four, then eighteen year old George Anne

455
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 3: Hawkins was walking near his sorority house at the University

456
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 3: of Washington. The disappearance of young women was from Page

457
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 3: News at the time. Georgie Anne was well aware of

458
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 3: the threat and had been regularly walking with friends, but

459
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 3: after leaving her boyfriend's home, she sat out alone on

460
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: a well lit road to walk the short distance to

461
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 3: her house.

462
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 8: As she was walking home, she ran into a man

463
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 8: who had a lay cast on with his plants are

464
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 8: split and was all, I leave his right leg. He

465
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 8: was fumbling with a briefcase and on crutches. That person

466
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 8: was Ted Bundy. He asked her, would you mind helping

467
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 8: me take my briefcase to my car. Of course, she

468
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 8: doesn't think. This guy with a cast on his leg bruise.

469
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,640
Speaker 8: This guy with crutches ruse. This guy who's so nice

470
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 8: and articulate ruse is going to do anything to her.

471
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 8: In her mind she thought, yeah, I can help him.

472
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 8: And what does she do? She takes the briefcase. They

473
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 8: walked down the alley and he had put his crowbar

474
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 8: right behind his VW his page VW, And as she

475
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 8: was putting the crutches in the car, he reaches back,

476
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 8: grabs the crowbar, and he hit her in the head

477
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 8: to hit her so hard that both her earrings flew

478
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 8: off and she came out of one of her shoes.

479
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 8: He didn't grab those. Then he put her in the car,

480
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 8: and then he took her to a remote area about

481
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 8: twenty minutes from there where she had awakened on the way,

482
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 8: and eat her again. And then he killed her soon

483
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 8: after that. But the ruse played a part in obtaining her.

484
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 8: If he would have had a bad look, if he

485
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 8: would have looked like a criminal, if he didn't have

486
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 8: the ruse of a cast or grutches, there would be

487
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 8: no reason.

488
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: To help him.

489
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 8: So he tells Bill Egmar, he said he did all

490
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 8: these things so that these good, kind women who were

491
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 8: raised right would help me. So here you got a

492
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 8: woman Georgie and Hawkins who knows about the women disappearing

493
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 8: who already assumes their homicide, and yet she meets somebody

494
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 8: that doesn't fit what her criteria is for an evil individual.

495
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 3: Colberger appears to intentionally have tried to use the ruis

496
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 3: to calm at least one of the roommates, and if

497
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 3: the twenty eight year old had been fantasizing or even

498
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 3: planning to kill for a long time, Coburger could have

499
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,959
Speaker 3: been using the cover of a criminology student to prepare

500
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: for those future murders. This type of long term fantasizing

501
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 3: turned organized planning is also common with killers like BTK

502
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 3: and Ted Bundy again Jeff and Kevin Sullivan.

503
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 5: He was kind of staking out the house. He would

504
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 5: drive by it, he went there lot. You know, in

505
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 5: the months leading up to the murders, do you think

506
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 5: that speaks to escalation? Like maybe at first he would

507
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 5: just do a drive by or follow them or maybe

508
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 5: peer in their window, and it just becomes you need

509
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 5: a little bit, a biggerfect, a biggerffects. So maybe one day

510
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 5: he goes inside and then just becomes more and more

511
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 5: until it ultimately leads to murder.

512
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 8: I guarantee you that people that do this prior to

513
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 8: the murder they are thinking about it a lot, They

514
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 8: are living mentally in that realm, and usually it has

515
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 8: a sexual component to it, which will become masturbatory even

516
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 8: prior to the event, just as some of these people

517
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 8: visit these locations afterwards and have to sexualize the experience

518
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 8: to masturbation. So I would assume that he was trying

519
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 8: to not unleash and do as much. And remember, there's

520
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 8: always gotta be a first time. Once you kill your

521
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 8: first person, you can never go back and unkill that person.

522
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 8: You were forever changed. So if that attack and murder

523
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 8: on those four kids college kids was the first one,

524
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 8: and if that was Coburger, then he was doing everything

525
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 8: he could to maintain it and organize himself as an

526
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 8: organized person so as not to make any problems for

527
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 8: himself until that time happened. So when he got in there,

528
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 8: I mean, whoever got in there, If it was Coburger,

529
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 8: he either unleashed it himself or he just couldn't take

530
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 8: it anymore. And that's what Bundy did. Bundy lived in

531
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 8: this dark realm of sexual violent fantasy for so many years.

532
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 8: It was going to reach a point in his faculties

533
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 8: where it was gonna tip over and he was gonna

534
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 8: crossover from fantasy to reality. That's where it's going, and

535
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 8: that's where these people ultimately wants it to go. And

536
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 8: when that first time happens, even if the person escapes,

537
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 8: since if it's Coburger, he might have been thinking right

538
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 8: after the murders, in the days after, what did.

539
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: I leave there?

540
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 8: And way of forensics something Bundy didn't have to worry

541
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 8: about what happened there, even if I had gloves, would

542
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 8: anybody have seen me go in? It was probably pretty

543
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 8: frightened as to what may have happened that could ultimately

544
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 8: cause his apprehension. So in that case, would he be

545
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 8: sitting back and planning his next murder. No, he'd be

546
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 8: trying to get to the place where if I can

547
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 8: just wait this out and if I'm not arrested, then

548
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 8: maybe I can I can go again. Do I think

549
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 8: if he's the one that he would have ultimately killed again?

550
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 8: Highly likely? It probably almost assured that he would, especially

551
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 8: if he really enjoyed doing it. And and if this

552
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 8: person enjoyed killing with that knife while they were killing them,

553
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 8: you've got somebody that's going to be a problem to

554
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 8: other people down the road.

555
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 5: Speaking of that, What are the traits of killers who

556
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 5: hunt like Bundy, like allegedly Coborger.

557
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 8: Well, I think the people that do this have a

558
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 8: lot of things that are extremely similar. When he said,

559
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 8: people have a hard time understanding I did it because

560
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 8: I just like killing people. Now, that's it. That says

561
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 8: it all. I just like killing people.

562
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: Now.

563
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 8: One thing these people do, they have a tendency to

564
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 8: think that kind of they own them. They're like God

565
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 8: or something, and they go. I decided whether they would

566
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 8: live or die, and they died. But I was also

567
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 8: there when they took their last breath and breathed out

568
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 8: their last breath, and that's something that the family can't

569
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 8: boast about, or no one can, because that's mine and

570
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 8: that's mine forever. That's why the and the ground in

571
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 8: which the murders occur, or even the dumping sites if

572
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 8: it's different, become very sacred to these people. And that

573
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 8: is across the board. You can go to Arthur Shawcross,

574
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,879
Speaker 8: who would revisit the sites, and so many of them

575
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 8: do Bundy. Bundy always went back to these sites.

576
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,479
Speaker 5: We know that Coburger did too as well. The next morning,

577
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 5: at least based on cell phone tower records.

578
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, you wanted to look at you, probably thinking

579
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 8: my work's in there. I've done all this work. Now,

580
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 8: I've done it. I've created my work. There it is.

581
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 8: Does anybody know yet? Do they know yet?

582
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 3: More on that next time. For more information on the

583
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 3: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat

584
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 3: Underscore Studios. The Idaho Ascer is produced by Stephanie Leidecker,

585
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 3: Jeff Sheene, Connor Powell, Chris Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and me

586
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 3: Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music

587
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 3: by Jared Aston. The Idaho Massacre is a production of

588
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 3: iHeart Radio in Kati's studios. For more podcasts like this,

589
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

590
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.

591
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 4: I'm Diana. You may know as Body Moving, My Friend

592
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 4: and I. John Green were featured in the Netflix documentary

593
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 4: Don't f with Cats. On our new podcast, True Crimes

594
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 4: of John and Deiana were turning our online investigative skills

595
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 4: to some of the most unexplained, unsolved, and most ignored cases.

596
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: Police say thirty three year old bride Again was shot dead.

597
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 7: Gunned down in front of his two year old daughter.

598
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 6: Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted attack.

599
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: It appears to be an execution style of assassination.

600
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 4: This is very active, so we have to be careful.

601
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 7: I've heard that there's a house that has some bodies

602
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 7: in the basement.

603
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 2: I knew.

604
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 4: I just knew the move was wrong.

605
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 5: Maybe there's something more sinister at play than just one

606
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 5: young girl going missing. If you know something, heard something,

607
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 5: please it's never too late to.

608
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:32,839
Speaker 7: Do the right thing.

609
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 4: This is true crimes with John and Deianna, the.

610
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 5: Production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Justice is something that

611
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 5: takes different shapes or formed