WEBVTT - In the Dark 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:07.400 Newly uncovered posts made by an online forum may give 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.520 us insight into Brian Coberger's character. 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.080 Between November of two thousand and nine and February twenty twelve, 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.440 while Coburger was a teenager, he allegedly made one hundred 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.119 and eighteen posts, and in one of them, he said 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.520 he felt no emotion and said quote, I can say 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.120 and do whatever I want with little remorse. 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:37.360 This is the Idaho Massacre. A production of KAT Studios 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:45.599 and iHeartRadio episode seven in the Dark. I'm Courtney Armstrong, 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.360 a television producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:56.880 and Connor Powell. In July of twenty eleven, a user 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.600 going by the name Xar posted on an online chat 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.680 forum that quote the ringing in his ears and the 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.240 fuzz in his vision made him feel that all the 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.800 demons in his head were mocking him. The chilling statement 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.680 is just one of more than one hundred messages believed 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.880 to be authored by a then teenage Brian Cooeberger on 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:21.520 the website tapatok. In post after post, Coburger claimed to 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.600 be suffering from a little known neurological syndrome called visual snow. 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.240 The rare condition has a range of disorienting symptoms, but 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.120 the most common is constantly seeing snow like flex or 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.360 black and white scattered dots, like the static on an 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:40.800 old analog television. 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.319 I see a large intensity of black, yellow, white fuzz. 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.520 It makes my mind fizzle and I could barely keep 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:50.840 in the bounds of reality. 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.800 Coburger wrote that his condition led to anxiety, depression, and 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.440 quote crazy thoughts. These posts paint a picture of a 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.400 deeply who would later turn to heroine and develop an 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:08.520 obsessive interest in violent criminals. Coburger's dark mind and law 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.000 enforcement background has led many to draw similarities to other 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:17.280 serial killers like Dennis Radar. Radar dubbed himself quote the 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.280 BTK for his fondness to bind, torture, and kill his victims, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:27.400 and Joseph James DiAngelo, otherwise known as the Golden State Killer. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.120 Both had a history of disturbing thoughts and an intense 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.840 interest in law enforcement. So how does Brian Coburger fit 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:39.600 into the larger history of killers. What in his background 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.800 could have potentially led Coburger down a path to murder? 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.320 How did he go from someone who caught criminals to 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:51.320 potentially becoming a killer himself, or could he have potentially 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.680 evolved into a killer as he descended deeper into the 0:02:54.760 --> 0:03:00.680 dark world of criminology. When investigators released It's the Probable 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.600 Cause Affidavid in the University of Idaho murders, the nineteen 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.000 page document laid out much of the evidence linking Coburger 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.240 to the crime. According to police, the twenty eight year 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.840 old criminology student's DNA was on a knife sheath found 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.320 at the murder scene, and a white Atlanta like the 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.360 one Coburger drove, was seen driving past the home on 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:28.240 King Road multiple times. Coburger's phone also repeatedly pinged on 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.519 towers near the house in the weeks before the Grizzly murders. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.320 But one key piece of the puzzle was conspicuously missing 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:45.520 from the Probable Cause Affidavid. Motive There's Jeff and Stephanie. 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.400 Motive is an essential part of the criminal justice process. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.640 Its official definition is the moving course, the impulse, or 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.160 the desire that induces criminal action on the part of 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.360 the accused. Basically, why did this crime or murder happen? 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.880 As rational humans, we crave a justification for otherwise senseless 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:01.880 and horrible acts. 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.880 I mean, it's a very important piece of the court process, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.760 and it's not a requirement to get a conviction, but look, 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:10.920 jurors really want to make sense of a case. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.040 This case is so fascinating, not only because of the 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.640 sheer atrocity of the murders, but also because of the 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.480 accused trajectory and how complex it is. Up until December 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.200 twenty twenty two, Brian Coberger seemingly had wanted to be 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.320 a hero. He told his friends he had helped to 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.360 study high profile criminals and aspired to help catch quote 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:29.520 unquote bad guys. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.039 This is the part that doesn't totally make sense about 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.960 this case. How and why does Coburger go from that 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.640 to being accused of brutally murdering four people. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.360 I speak for the general public when I say we're 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:42.680 all immensely curious. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.520 I guess, depending upon what is revealed at trial, we 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.480 may get a motive at some point, but as of 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.479 right now, there really doesn't appear to be one. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.080 So it raises the question was Brian Coberger born a killer? 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.120 Or did something happen in his life to turn him 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:57.760 into a monster. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.839 And one thing where it's noting listen, don't officially know 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.279 about Coburger's mental state, but what we do know is 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.559 what he said about his symptoms around his condition called 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.200 visual snow, and that's probably a pretty decent place to start. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:18.480 Understanding visual snow is still not fully well understood. A 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.680 lot of how it works or how it's affecting the 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.200 brain is under kind of hypothesis. 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.479 Coberger wrote on the TAPA Talk for Him that his 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.080 visual snow symptoms began in September of two thousand and nine, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.080 when he was just fourteen years old. He admitted the 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.000 condition changed him, saying he became more anxious and developed 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.760 a sense of derealization and hopelessness. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.839 I think for some people who have high anxiety over 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.719 it or want to get rid of it, that's really 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.560 the frustrating part, because we don't have a cure for it. 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.160 Joseph Allen is a doctor of optometry who has studied 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.800 visual snow tho suffers from the rare condition. Here he 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:04.160 is speaking with Jeff. 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.200 You obviously never treated Brian Coburger or know his state 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.320 of mind. But for someone who's maybe not in the 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.200 best state of mind, how do you think throwing visual 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:16.960 snow on top of that would affect someone. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:23.640 So there is associations with visual snow with depression and anxiety. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.160 Those probably are the two most consistent ones on top 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.080 of headaches. Like a lot of people who have visual 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.719 snow usually have a history of migraines. It's like almost 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.720 sixty percent of people who have visual snow syndrome also 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.360 have a history of migraine headaches. You're somebody with visual 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.839 SNOW and you're seeing visual phenomenon like this that you 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.560 can't explain that doctors maybe are being dismissive about, and 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.840 you have other forms of anxiety or depression. I think 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:59.039 it can really become more isolating. We know isolation Bru's 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.560 mental illness. I think there is maybe a higher risk 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.040 factor for some of them. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.240 In posts on the online visual Snow forum, Coburger suggests 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.440 he turned to the internet in two thousand and nine 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.280 in hopes of finding help, but in the absence of 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.400 answers to his questions. Coburger said he felt like the 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.480 demons in his head were mocking him. As a result, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.400 he grew distant from the people around him. In a 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.680 July twenty eleven post, Coburger wrote, quote, I have had 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.720 this horrible depersonalization in my life for almost two years. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.440 As I hug my family, I look into their faces, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.760 I see nothing. It is like I'm looking at a 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:44.200 video game but less. I am blank. I have no opinion, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:50.160 I have no emotion, I have nothing. This type of 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.360 disconnection is common for people suffering from eye issues, particularly 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.480 visual snow Here Again, Doctor Joseph Allen, speaking with. 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:04.320 Jeff I have identified as having visual snow I fit 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.720 the diagnosis requirements. It's something that I've struggled with since 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.760 I was a kid, Like I can think of like 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.680 maybe nine years old. Third grade is when I first, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.640 I think, became just more perceptually aware of what was 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.360 happening with my eyes. But like most people who have 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.200 visual snow they don't either no one talks about it 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.560 or we just sort of, you know, you grow up 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:27.160 with it all your life and you just sort of 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:28.600 assume that's how everybody sees. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.440 So did you go into optometry because you felt like 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:32.320 you had eye issues? 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.120 I think there is definitely some poll there. At a 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.959 young age, around age seven age, I got thick glasses, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.400 and ultimately I think what drove me to be in 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.160 the profession is because I got contact lenses. Getting contact 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.400 lenses was a lot allowed me to play sports and 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.920 that helped me make friends and having that boost of 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:50.640 self confidence at age of thirteen. 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.120 It's interesting that you bring up how getting your eyes 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.760 kind of taken care of really opened up a lot 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:58.760 of doors for you socially and kind of changed your 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.920 life for the better. Because Brian Coburger struggled socially his 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.199 whole life. He didn't connect with girls, he didn't really 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:07.920 have a lot of friends, and so it makes it 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.079 you wonder, is it maybe because he couldn't see properly, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.400 Like he wasn't connecting with the world the way he felt, 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:15.400 you know, he could have been. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.600 I think eyesight is super important. Like for my case, 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.080 sports like kids make much better social connections if they're 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.280 involved in activities with other kids. And for me, it 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.160 was hard to play football. You can't really play football 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.200 with pick glasses on. So for me, getting into contact 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.839 lenses really was that key to opening up that whole 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.080 other stream of life for me. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.600 But by his teenage years, Brian Coberger wrote on Tapa Talk, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.199 he wasn't making personal connections with family or friends. Instead, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:50.960 his mind was moving in a darker direction in posts. 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.920 As a then sixteen year old, Coburger wrote that his 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.720 visual snow condition made him feel like a quote organic 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:02.439 sack of meat with no self worth. He berated himself 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.640 for his expanding array of mental struggles that ranged from 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.840 depression to delusions of grandeur, to anxiety to constant thoughts 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.360 of suicide. Coburger even wrote lyrics to a rap song saying, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.240 you are not my equal. You are evil, but I 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.640 am the devil. But now I am going regal. Don't 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:27.520 fuck with us again. Joseph Allen, there. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.319 Is no evidence right now that visual snow syndrome would 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:36.080 cause mental illness, but it is I think in his case, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.720 if he has mental illness and then a visual snow 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.440 on top of it, it's like augmenting it. It's giving 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.959 him more, maybe more reasons to lose grip on his 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.880 own sense of reality. Perhaps there is some reported on 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.400 top of depression of anxiety, there is something called depersonalization 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:59.840 and derealization which is associated with it. Depersonalization kind of 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:04.280 refers to these feelings that you've detached from your physical 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.439 body or even from kind of your own mind, and 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:12.000 so people will feel that they are robotic or being 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:17.280 maybe controlled by somebody else. And there's this concept of derealization, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:19.840 which I like to think of it as the Matrix syndrome. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.760 If you've ever seen that movie The Matrix, where people 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.640 feel like the world around them isn't real, they feel 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.920 that it's artificial. And you can imagine if you have 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.880 visual snow syndrome and you see this static all the time, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.960 you could be like, well, maybe my body is just 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.800 like a video game character, and somebody else outside of 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.440 this make believe world I live in is actually controlling me. 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.400 So I think if you have already existing mental illness, 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.120 a poor grip on reality, a poor social structure, and 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:58.079 then maybe having these feelings of depersonalization derealization, then it's 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:03.400 it's easier maybe to whose emotional connection between other people 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.559 and even maybe what's right and wrong. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.320 Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:22.720 a moment. By twenty eleven, Brian Kolberger was desperate for 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.840 a solution. The effects of visual Snow were weighing on him. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.800 He wrote on the online forum that he visited a 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:35.840 neurologist and took antimigraine medicine. Neither worked. Coburger later adopted 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:40.160 a strict diet, removing sugar, bread, wheat, soy, and other 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.040 carbohydrates from his meals. High school friends described him during 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.760 this time as obsessive about his new health regime, which 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.840 did help him lose a significant amount of weight, at 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.280 least one hundred pounds, if not more, and according to 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.280 his own words, Coburger began to improve. Coburger wrote on 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.120 the tap talk forum in February Worry of twenty twelve 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.520 that he had accepted his visual snow and that the 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.320 condition no longer scared him. However, in his final post, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.520 he also said quote, I feel like coming to terms 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.760 could be a bad thing, though again Stephanie and Jeff. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.200 Between twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, Coburger went through this 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:26.120 huge transformation after several years of feeling very down and depressed. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.480 According to reports, he really started to turn things around 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.440 and turned a corner. He adopted a new diet, he 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.199 started to lose a ton of weight, and he was 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.040 apparently much more happy about life and seemingly more optimistic. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:41.400 But it's also around this time that he gets kicked 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.240 out of the law enforcement Educational Vocation program and ends 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.400 up having to finish high school remotely in the spring 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:48.240 of twenty thirteen. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.800 This is a pretty big deal, and according to multiple friends, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.800 this turmoil really spun him in a dangerous direction. He 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.320 started to use drugs. Apparently he started with marijuana, but 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.280 then that really escalated to heroin, which is a huge leap. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.000 One of his friends, Rich Pasqual, who worked with Coburger 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.600 at the pizza shop, said that by twenty thirteen, Coburger 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.280 was a full on heroin addict, but he was eventually 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.720 able to kick the habit, going to rehab and enrolling 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.559 at the Northampton Community College. 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.160 It does seem that Coburger has a bit of a 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.920 history of locking in and almost obsessing about certain parts 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.920 of his life, whether it's the visual snow or drugs, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.400 his diet, and in some ways, even his own criminal behavior. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.800 This type of compulsive behavior is something we see with 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.760 other serial or prolific killers. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.240 After years of being socially detached, addicted to drugs, and suicidal, 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.120 Coburger appears to have found a new purpose after rehab, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.640 an intense fascination with the criminal mind. This fascination led 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:59.560 Coburger to study at nearby Dessalge University and ultimately under 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.000 the renowned on forensic psychologists, doctor Catherine Ramsland. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.280 Do you have to study the victim and you have 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.760 to know things about offenders? So you have to study 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.600 offenders and you have to know the kinds of things 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:14.320 they might do. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.920 Ramsland is one of, if not the leading expert on 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.880 serial killers and murderers. She's written more than sixty books 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:27.120 and hundreds of articles on violent criminals. On December twenty second, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.920 twenty twenty two, producer Jeff Shane conducted an interview with 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.720 Ramsland for a different project. Just eight days later, her 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:39.480 former student Brian Coberger would be arrested. In hindsight, their 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:40.920 conversation is chilling. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.000 What can you tell me about people who commit crimes? 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.720 So you're looking at the body and the crime scene, 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.400 maybe the whole geographic analysis in terms of their comfort 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.920 zone and et cetera. But you're also looking at what 0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:00.080 do we know about offenders to apply to this, and 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.720 then you want to build as detailed biography of the 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.720 person as you possibly can. It's all going to be 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:11.960 probability based, more likely to have education than not education, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:17.280 or more likely to be compelled sexually because of certain rituals, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.840 and nothing missing. But if things are always missing, they're 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.960 all more likely to be motivated by greed or any 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:31.040 eliminating witnesses not really interested in the murder itself, more 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.920 interested in eliminating witnesses while they get off with the goods. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:40.040 But if the victim is mutilated in some way, overkill 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.680 things like that, that's going to tell you a different 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.120 story about the offender. So a lot of it's going 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.600 to be based on what you're finding at the scene. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:54.240 There's a retrospective profile and a prospective profile, and too 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.400 many people are doing the prospective profiling, and that is 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:02.760 more of a risk evaluation based on a pattern of behaviors. 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:07.080 Retrospective profile is what do we see right here at 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.919 the crime scene today that will tell us something about 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.800 this offender. And if we have several scenes that we 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.280 think are related to the same offender, what do those 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.600 various scenes tell us about this person. 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.720 Ramsland has refused to comment publicly on her former graduate student, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.760 but she is most famous for her extensive research and 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.720 books about the serial killer Dennis Radar, most commonly known 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:42.960 as the BTK. Dessal's University is known for its hands 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.800 on criminology program and as an undergraduate criminology student. Coburger 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.440 would have studied Radar. As a graduate student of Ramsland. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.560 It's likely Coburger would have studied Radar in depth. He 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.280 may have even had access to Ramsland's primary research information 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.360 about both real killers and Dennis Radar. 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.919 Tell me about BTK and how modern day criminals might 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:08.960 have evolved since then. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.520 These days, serial killers quite often are a little more sophisticated. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.800 They're aware of you know, the investigators are looking at patterns. 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:24.800 But even back in you know, the seventies, they sometimes 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.600 they would have a ritual, so there would be similarities. 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.080 But then they'll pick up somebody a victim of opportunity, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.600 weren't even looking, but they had their murder kits, so 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.520 why not go for this? And then it's completely different. 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.480 I remember Dennis Raider, for example, the BTK killer who 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.920 so nineteen seventies into the eighties, and this final one 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.520 of the ten he killed was in nineteen ninety one, 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.800 and by nineteen ninety one he realized how the FBI 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.800 approached all this, and so instead of killing people in 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.760 houses that he entered, he took a couple victims and 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.000 dumped them outside. One victim he called it in none 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.240 of the others. Several of them he wrote notes to 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.920 the newspaper, but not all of them, so that's not 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:16.960 a He's not a particularly sophisticated person. But he did 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.240 change things up a little bit. He murdered a family 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.199 of four, then he murdered a single woman. They didn't 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.560 connect them at all because even though the bodies all 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.399 were bound, he'd used different knots on the single woman 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.200 than he had on the family. And he didn't do 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.840 that purposely. He just liked knots and he was mixing 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:39.240 it up. 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.800 How much Coburger studied or understood about serial killers like 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.080 Radar isn't clear, but there are unique and disturbing similarities 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.560 between Coburger and Radar. Both are accused of committing their 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.600 murderers while pursuing degrees in criminal justice. Radar was earning 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.199 an undergraduate degree from which tosstatem as he embarked on 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.120 his killing spree, and as doctor Ramslan mentioned in her interview, 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.200 Radar mixed up his killing profile to evade investigators. When 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.600 Coburger was arrested, he was wearing rubber gloves and sorting 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.960 his trash into smaller plastic bags in an apparent effort 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.240 to prevent police from collecting evidence against him. In an 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.280 interview with TMZ, Dennis Radar said he saw similarities between 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.840 Coburger and himself, the convicted killer of tens, that he 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.359 believed Coburger, like himself, was motivated to kill by the 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.440 fantasy of homicide. Again, Stephanie and Jeff. 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.679 This is really the scariest question about Coburger. We know 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.000 that he told people from a young age that he 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.920 wanted to catch violent criminals and be a police officer. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.680 Later at WSU, he said he wanted to help rural 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.600 police departments solve crimes. So was this all talk just 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.120 a front or a ruse to get in with investigators? 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.199 Did he want to figure out how they worked so 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.800 he could operate around them. Given what we know about 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.800 his teenageers, his feelings of isolation, and the demons in 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:01.960 his had, is it possible that he had a long 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.120 standing desire to kill. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.400 So with that in mind, are you saying that possibly 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.160 studying criminology was part of the plan to learn how 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.760 to kill people without getting caught exactly, or I also 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.600 wonder if he has this personality type that's a bit obsessive. 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.280 Was it possible that he's studying criminals at school because 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.680 he's been obsessed with crime and fantasizing about being a. 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:27.960 Killer his whole life. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.160 Or is it because he was studying criminology and about 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.600 killers that he began to fantasize about it. 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.359 That could make sense, and he definitely could have used 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.600 what he learned from his criminology studies to help him 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.480 get away with murder, at least for a little while. 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:56.439 Let's stop here for another break. Brian Colberger's classmates and 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.119 professors described him as intellectual, though at times arrogant and 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.840 a bit of a know at all. One former professor 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.480 from Dsal's University went further and said Coburger was a 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:12.080 brilliant student. Michelle Bulger, an associate professor of criminology, wrote 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.560 a letter of recommendation for Colberger's PhD application, describing him 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:24.360 as perfectly professional in all their interactions. She also advised 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:28.160 Coburger with his master's thesis on script theory, which focused 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.880 on how and why criminals commit their crimes. As part 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.040 of Coberger's deep dive into script theory, the idea that 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.080 people largely fall into patterns or scripts, Bulger oversaw the 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.280 creation of Coburger's request for criminals to fill out a 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.520 survey on Reddit about their thoughts and emotions while committing 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.560 a crime. Stephanie and Jeff. 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.919 This Reddit survey is just so interesting. Yes, while his 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.600 former professor says that type of work is very common 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:02.360 amongst criminology students, and the specific nature of the questions 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:05.399 and what he would later be accused of certainly raises 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:07.040 some serious questions. 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.680 We looked up the original survey. He posted it on Wednesday, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.439 June first, twenty twenty two, which was two hundred and 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:17.080 twelve days before Xana, Ethan, Madison and Kayley were murdered. 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.359 Here's what it said. Hello, my name is Brian, and 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:22.960 I am inviting you to participate in a research project 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:27.000 that seeks to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:30.719 decision making when committing a crime. In particular, this study 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.840 seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.160 with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience. 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.360 The questions read, did you prepare for the crime before 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:42.800 leaving your home? Please detail what you were thinking and 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.760 feeling at this point after committing the crime. What were 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.199 you thinking and feeling. How did you travel to and 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.560 enter the location that the crime occurred. After arriving, what 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:54.280 steps did you take prior to locating the victim or target? 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:56.920 Please detail your thoughts and feelings. How did you leave 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.520 the scene. Why did you choose that victim or target 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.280 over others before making your move? How did you approach 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:04.600 the victim or target? Please detail what you were thinking 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.439 and feeling. How did you accomplish your goal? Please explain 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:09.960 what you were thinking and feeling before leaving? Is there 0:24:09.960 --> 0:24:10.880 anything else you did? 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:14.800 Jeff, what you said about this type of survey is 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:18.240 pretty typical of graduate students, but it did get us 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:21.639 curious if he had used any of this information in 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.679 his thesis, and it doesn't appear that he did so. 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.399 Maybe he didn't get enough participants and scrapped the idea, 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:28.440 or he. 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.000