Speaker 1: And I'm Steve Schmidt with the Warning and I am
Speaker 1: delighted today to be joined by one of the pre
Speaker 1: eminent investigative journalists in the English speaking world, Vicky Ward
Speaker 1: of Vicky Ward is a new Netflix documentary out about it,
Speaker 1: and of course I'm talking about the title of her book,
Speaker 1: appropriately focused on the victims the Idaho for the terrible
Speaker 1: murders committed by Brian Kroberger in town of Moscow, Idaho,
Speaker 1: a Bucolic university town in the reddest of Red States,
Speaker 1: and the book is about all of the schisms in
Speaker 1: our society. We'll also talk this afternoon a little bit
Speaker 1: about Jeffrey Epstein, because Vicky Ward has investigated that case.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about class in America, when you
Speaker 1: talk about power in America, when you talk about accountability
Speaker 1: in America, it seems that Jeffrey Epstein's hand keeps reaching
Speaker 1: up from the grave. And so as we get the
Speaker 1: conversation started, Vicky, what is at the core what drew
Speaker 1: you to this case that makes you want to go
Speaker 1: so deep into such a very very dark story.
Speaker 2: This one is the Coburger story, right, Yeah, I do
Speaker 2: hope for well, you're right, Steve It's a big departure
Speaker 2: for me. You know, I normally look at corruption and
Speaker 2: power and money, and this is very different. I was
Speaker 2: wrapping up a podcast series about the Federalist Society, Cool
Speaker 2: Pipeline Power. It's about the ties between Yale Law School,
Speaker 2: which most people think of as very progressive, but it's
Speaker 2: about the ties between Yale Law School and the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court on the conservative side. And it was very, very interesting,
Speaker 2: but it took me a very long time. I'd spent
Speaker 2: two years thinking about originalism and sort of one key
Speaker 2: constitutional legal theory. And I'm the mom of twin sons
Speaker 2: who are now twenty two. In November of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: when the murders happened, they were both in college. And
Speaker 2: so there was something about the photograph of the four
Speaker 2: victims in Moscow, Idaho, these beautiful four college kids, that
Speaker 2: really just stayed with me because these kids were so ordinary,
Speaker 2: it could have been any of our kids. And I
Speaker 2: kind of couldn't get that photograph out of my head.
Speaker 2: And as my kids then came home for Thanksgiving and
Speaker 2: later then for Christmas and they still had no clue
Speaker 2: who had done this unspeakable saying, I kept wondering about
Speaker 2: those kids' families. I was also very drawn by the
Speaker 2: pictures of the news of Moscow, this little town in
Speaker 2: Idaho I'd never heard of, but as you said, incredibly bucolic,
Speaker 2: picture perfect small American town, jarringly at odds with the
Speaker 2: tragedy really of what had happened. And then when they
Speaker 2: arrested on the other side of the country in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: much closer to where I live in New York, this
Speaker 2: criminology PhD student, you know, something about the fact that
Speaker 2: he was also a college student was interesting to me,
Speaker 2: and I did wonder and the mother of young adult sons,
Speaker 2: what it was that could have driven him, someone who
Speaker 2: had overcome heroin addiction as a teenager and obviously overcome
Speaker 2: considerable sort of personal difficulty, to then get into a
Speaker 2: PhD program at a prestigious university, Washington State University, and
Speaker 2: then go out blow it all up, and go out
Speaker 2: and commit these unspeakable crimes. There was something about that,
Speaker 2: and it all felt It felt in contrast to thinking
Speaker 2: about the Supreme Court. It felt very gritty and very
Speaker 2: real and very tangible, and I was sort of mulling
Speaker 2: all this aloud. I've worked with James Patterson before on
Speaker 2: podcasts Only Enough on Epstein related podcasts, and he phoned
Speaker 2: me up and said, I hear you're interested in writing
Speaker 2: a book about these murders and something about them, he said.
Speaker 2: Spoke to him as well, and we both agreed that
Speaker 2: there's something about it felt reminiscent of In Cold Blood
Speaker 2: by Truman Capoti, which is I think a book that
Speaker 2: had both left a searing impression on both of us,
Speaker 2: and we agreed that if we were going to do this,
Speaker 2: we were going to write a book that would feel personal,
Speaker 2: it would feel emotional. We wanted readers to know the
Speaker 2: four victims Maddie Kayley's Anna An Ethan. We wanted them,
Speaker 2: readers to feel what the day to day of their
Speaker 2: lives were like, what their different personalities were, and we
Speaker 2: wanted readers to feel like they were there in Moscow
Speaker 2: when these murders happened. And we wanted readers to sort
Speaker 2: of feel the awful ripple effect that happens when something
Speaker 2: like this happens on and how the friends and the
Speaker 2: families are affected, yes, but also how the coroner is affected,
Speaker 2: the police chief, the mayor, the local journalist. People sort
Speaker 2: of maybe six degrees away. I mean in this case,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the local business owners almost went
Speaker 2: bust because of the true crime mania that developed in
Speaker 2: the wake of the of the murders. There was all
Speaker 2: this online speculation and we get into that, you know,
Speaker 2: just how harmful this was. We get into the fact
Speaker 2: that there was a political divide in the town at
Speaker 2: the time of the murders. It's this is a liberal
Speaker 2: college town, but there is a conservative church in Moscow
Speaker 2: which has four thousand members. The town has only got
Speaker 2: a population of twenty four thousand. The church is very rich,
Speaker 2: up a lot of main street. It's leader who is
Speaker 2: you know, talks a lot for the book. A stated
Speaker 2: mission is to evangelize this town. And at the time
Speaker 2: of the murders, lawsuits were flying between the church and
Speaker 2: the police and civic leaders because various arrests have been
Speaker 2: made of church members during COVID because they'd refused to
Speaker 2: wear masks and other reasons. So it was very helpful
Speaker 2: for the church politically when the police appeared in the
Speaker 2: eyes of the American media to look like the Keystone
Speaker 2: Cops for six weeks, when the police initially said nothing
Speaker 2: after these murders had happened, and then there was a
Speaker 2: drum beat of criticism online and elsewhere, like why are
Speaker 2: they saying nothing? There could be a murderer roaming around
Speaker 2: and this you know, this played into the hands of
Speaker 2: the church who thought it could be very, very helpful
Speaker 2: for us if the police screw up. So that you know,
Speaker 2: there is all of this in the book. It's not
Speaker 2: just about a terrible crime that happens in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, but it is about that too.
Speaker 1: When when you think about what happened there in this
Speaker 1: college town, and you think about those those four kids,
Speaker 1: and you go, you go into a story like this,
Speaker 1: how do you reconcile yourself to facing the evil that
Speaker 1: manifests and stares back at you? How do you how
Speaker 1: do you process the the event and the human being
Speaker 1: who committed the act and the motivation which remains I
Speaker 1: don't know what word would you use, nebulous at at
Speaker 1: at at at best? How how do you how do
Speaker 1: you think about that that presence of of evil And
Speaker 1: as you cover this, you are bringing it close to
Speaker 1: you in a in a lot of different ways. Talk
Speaker 1: talk about that.
Speaker 2: As a really, really great question. So it's a balancing
Speaker 2: act for me in that the sort of forensic detective
Speaker 2: inside of mind, My brain and personality wants to find
Speaker 2: the answers I want to piece the jigsaw puzzle together.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: things that drives me to write the pieces I write,
Speaker 2: write the books I write, is I'm looking to make
Speaker 2: sense of things, and often you can't. And so it's
Speaker 2: about I have to balance my curiosity and wanting to
Speaker 2: understand and hoping that by going out and getting as
Speaker 2: much understanding as I can about Brian Coburger, that there
Speaker 2: will be something in that that is revelatory and helpful
Speaker 2: and tells us something about the broader cultural moment that
Speaker 2: we are in. And I do think that his story,
Speaker 2: just the bits we do know, are helpful in that regard.
Speaker 2: You know, I knew nothing about the quote unquote in
Speaker 2: cell movement, the involuntary celibate movement that a lot of
Speaker 2: antisocial young men stuck on their phones who've been rejected
Speaker 2: by women increasingly are very familiar with. You know, my
Speaker 2: sons know all about the insult movement. I didn't, So
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it was helpful for me at least,
Speaker 2: and I suspect for many other people, maybe of my age,
Speaker 2: you know, who don't know anything about it, to understand
Speaker 2: at least what the forces are on the internet that
Speaker 2: our kids are being exposed to.
Speaker 1: So what what is in? What is in in cell?
Speaker 2: So an insull is the colloquial term for an involuntary celibate,
Speaker 2: and they're in the last ten years or more, accelerated
Speaker 2: by COVID. There are a large number of disaffected men,
Speaker 2: young men whose physical interactions with women is possibly negligible,
Speaker 2: and you know, again partly to do with COVID, but
Speaker 2: also partly to do with, you know, the way human
Speaker 2: behavior has changed given our alliance on technology and social media.
Speaker 2: I mean, people don't physically go out in the way
Speaker 2: they maybe did thirty years ago, because you meet people
Speaker 2: on your phone when you get rejected, having not actually
Speaker 2: moved from your desk. And there is a large growing
Speaker 2: movement among young men who've never experienced, never had sex
Speaker 2: with a woman. That's what you never even touch to women.
Speaker 2: They tend to congregate on the sort of dark corners
Speaker 2: of the Internet.
Speaker 1: I don't want to, I don't want to interrupt you,
Speaker 1: but I want to I want to understand. I want
Speaker 1: to understand this a little more deeply and I and
Speaker 1: I just want to back up two steps to something
Speaker 1: you said, which is, I immediately go in my head to
Speaker 1: the physical world of some young guy walking up to
Speaker 1: a woman young woman and being rejected. But that's not
Speaker 1: what this is. What you said is, this is somebody
Speaker 1: who is sitting isolated to begin with, trying to make
Speaker 1: a digital connection through the means by which young people meet,
Speaker 1: which is online, and they are perpetually rejected through whatever
Speaker 1: that digital persona is, whatever their images, whatever their words is.
Speaker 1: However they present themselves to the world, and that connection,
Speaker 1: that ability to step outside of that isolation is denied
Speaker 1: them for for whatever reason. Do I do? I did
Speaker 1: I describe that accurately?
Speaker 2: You did? And then what happens is two people, you know,
Speaker 2: to a lot of these isolated, typically anti social young men,
Speaker 2: I mean that that when they do then I mean
Speaker 2: Brian Cobo did try to then go to a bar
Speaker 2: once or twice and it didn't go well. So he
Speaker 2: retreats back into his own world of the internet and him. So,
Speaker 2: but you're right that most of the rejection is experienced virtually,
Speaker 2: and so I. So when I sort of traced his childhood,
Speaker 2: teenage years young adulthood. That was, you know, you asked me.
Speaker 2: That was interesting, interesting for me to learn. I was
Speaker 2: interested to learn that he had been exposed to this
Speaker 2: video when he was an undergraduate, when he was doing
Speaker 2: his master's degree actually in psychology at the Sales University
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. I was interested to learn that he'd watched
Speaker 2: these videos made by this guy, Elliott Roger, who in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen was a college student on the West Coast
Speaker 2: out in Santa Barbara and who had also been rejected
Speaker 2: and you know, never had sex with women. It was
Speaker 2: a sort of social outcast. And Elliott Roger had written
Speaker 2: a memoir of his sad life and he'd made these videos.
Speaker 2: He was a privileged kid sitting in his BMW with
Speaker 2: the son setting behind him at the Santa Barbara Hills,
Speaker 2: saying that he was now going to go out and
Speaker 2: take his revenge on the sorority women who've rejected him.
Speaker 2: And he sent this video to his therapist, who sent
Speaker 2: it to his mother minutes before he went out and
Speaker 2: killed a large number of people, injured others, and finally
Speaker 2: killed himself. This was something that Brian Coburger knew all
Speaker 2: about and that you know that his fellow classmates talked
Speaker 2: to me about and he was also so much I found.
Speaker 1: That's two thousand, fourteen, fifteen, fourteen.
Speaker 2: Fourteen, and I only bring it up because Steve, You're right,
Speaker 2: we don't know. The police looked very hard for Coburger's motive.
Speaker 2: He had wiped his digital footprint clean, so they they
Speaker 2: were left guessing. But James Fry, the police chief, did
Speaker 2: say to me that, you know, recently after the book
Speaker 2: came out and when the gag order around this case
Speaker 2: was lifted, that he was frustrated by the lack of
Speaker 2: transparency from Washington State University, which is where Brian Coburger
Speaker 2: goes for his PhD. And had this case gone to trial,
Speaker 2: the victims' families had always told me they really wanted
Speaker 2: to know what the red flags were in Coburger's behavior
Speaker 2: on the campus of Washington State University, because that has
Speaker 2: remained a black box. And in the book, I think
Speaker 2: we do lift a veil on some of that, and
Speaker 2: you do see that by the time he gets there,
Speaker 2: he is a full blown misogynist and that is why,
Speaker 2: and it's is heinous views of women and it's treatment
Speaker 2: of women that lead him to blow up. He's the
Speaker 2: funding of his PhD. You know, he's got a teaching position,
Speaker 2: which is how he's able to pay for his PhD.
Speaker 2: And by the time the murders happened, he has been
Speaker 2: called in before the administration at Washington State University so
Speaker 2: often that you know, it's clear he's about to be fired.
Speaker 2: And this is all because of the way he speaks
Speaker 2: to women and interrupts them, he grades them poorly, but
Speaker 2: he also follows one of them out to her car,
Speaker 2: creeping her out, and he's you know, there's this scene
Speaker 2: in the book where a guy who's in his class
Speaker 2: they call it a cohort, makes the mistake of getting
Speaker 2: a lift from Coburger where and Coburg events to him
Speaker 2: in the car about women and says, you know, I
Speaker 2: could have any woman I want if I walked into
Speaker 2: a bar or any social gathering, I could you know,
Speaker 2: I could pick up any woman. Do what I want
Speaker 2: with that, And he then goes on to say that
Speaker 2: he believes, you know, he has a nineteen seventies sort
Speaker 2: of view of what women's role should be in the world,
Speaker 2: that women belong in the bedroom and the kitchen. They
Speaker 2: have no business in his mind doing college degrees. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, this classmate of fits listens to all of
Speaker 2: this with increasing kind of horror. And by the week
Speaker 2: before the murders, this same classmate, guy called Ben Roberts
Speaker 2: is it's so troubled by Coburger's appearance, so clear to
Speaker 2: him that the guy is there's something terribly wrong. Then
Speaker 2: he starts to type out what they call a care
Speaker 2: form that is supposed to go to the administration anonymously,
Speaker 2: and you know, tragically, you know, he looks up at
Speaker 2: Coburger again and he thinks, you know, there's something so
Speaker 2: off about this guy. If he ever finds out it's
Speaker 2: me who's sending in this form, there could be trouble.
Speaker 2: That's something I don't need. So he deletes it and
Speaker 2: doesn't send it, which, obviously, given what Coburger then went
Speaker 2: out and did in Moscow, is very troubling. But I
Speaker 2: bring up the Elliott Roger comparison. We don't know that
Speaker 2: they are connected, but there are parallels that are at
Speaker 2: least interesting. Elliot Roger in twenty fourteen went back and
Speaker 2: forth between two college House and Isla Vista. We're going
Speaker 2: and Elliott Roger in his book, and Brian Coburger lived
Speaker 2: in Pullman in Washington State where Washington State University is,
Speaker 2: which is a ten minute drive from Moscow, Idaho, so
Speaker 2: there's that similarity. There is also the fact that Elliott
Speaker 2: Roger wrote in his book that a woman he was
Speaker 2: specifically had in mind, she wasn't in the end. One
Speaker 2: of his victims was a childhood friend called Maddie, and
Speaker 2: the one of the victims one of Coburger's victims was
Speaker 2: Madison Maddie Mogan, whose nickname was Maddie, and most of
Speaker 2: the families of all four victims and the friends believe
Speaker 2: that Maddie Mogan was actually Coburger's intended target, not the
Speaker 2: other three, because that it was her bedroom that he
Speaker 2: went to on the night of the murders. He would
Speaker 2: have had no way of knowing that he would find
Speaker 2: her best friend there with her, because she had already
Speaker 2: left the house days before, and she was only happened
Speaker 2: to be there by complete chants. And it was Maddie
Speaker 2: Mogan's bedroom you could see from the road if you
Speaker 2: parked your car at the back of the house, which
Speaker 2: is what the police believe that he did twelve times
Speaker 2: between August and the night of the murders, and you
Speaker 2: would have been you could see Maddie Mgen through the
Speaker 2: window putting on her makeup or curling her hair, and
Speaker 2: anyone would have known it was her room because her
Speaker 2: name Maddie was spelled out in the window. So those
Speaker 2: are the parallels. But you're right when you know your
Speaker 2: original question, what's it like confronting this darkness?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And there are definitely moments where you know, I have
Speaker 2: had sleepless nights thinking about the thinking about the evil.
Speaker 2: And you know, also I'm a mom, and you know
Speaker 2: that sometimes just because I'm interested in something, I don't
Speaker 2: Also I'm always conscious I don't want to bring trouble
Speaker 2: on anyone else in my family. I mean, that's something
Speaker 2: to think about. But I also think that as often
Speaker 2: happens when you when you start digging in a story
Speaker 2: about really bad people. I mean, I think Brian Coburger
Speaker 2: is is unmitigated evil in a way I'm not sure
Speaker 2: I've ever seen before. Actually, but what But but the
Speaker 2: flip side of that is that I think the you
Speaker 2: know what, the book, So the book shows the very
Speaker 2: worst of humanity. I also think it shows the best
Speaker 2: of humanity. And I did find that the people of Moscow,
Speaker 2: you know, were extraordinarily welcoming.
Speaker 1: To me.
Speaker 2: The victims' families really took me in, you know. I
Speaker 2: went and stayed with the family of Eathan Japin at
Speaker 2: their home in pre Slate. The victims friends, particularly the
Speaker 2: young couple who found the bodies that awful morning, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of became like surrogate children to me. I mean,
Speaker 2: what they you know, they couldn't unsee what they'd seen,
Speaker 2: and their bravery and resilience touched me. And I think
Speaker 2: those are the reasons in the air. And you keep going,
Speaker 2: and it's as important to show that as it is
Speaker 2: to show evil. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It does. Is there any connection that you're aware of
Speaker 1: between Roger in Santa Barbara in the Columbine shootings? There
Speaker 1: is an enormous body of work that links that original
Speaker 1: school shooting, not original, but the preeminent school shooting of
Speaker 1: the era, let's say, to dozens and dozens of mass
Speaker 1: killings where those Columbine shooters have been fetishized by a
Speaker 1: later mass killing. And I wondered if you had any awareness,
Speaker 1: if there was any connection between you're in the combine
Speaker 1: killers and any type of adoration, any of followership on
Speaker 1: that connection.
Speaker 2: Well, we do know that there are people. In fact,
Speaker 2: you said to me you're in Toronto. There was a
Speaker 2: Toronto killing in twenty nineteen that was explicitly a copycat
Speaker 2: of Elliott Roger, quite explicitly Columbine. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's explicit, but you know, this is it's a question
Speaker 2: that is definitely in the minds certainly. I know of
Speaker 2: the Gonzalves family, the family of Kayleie Gonzalves, and it's something,
Speaker 2: you know, it's something that I would like to do
Speaker 2: more research into. I'm actually going to have dinner next
Speaker 2: week with Catherine Ramsland, the criminologist, who is the who
Speaker 2: is the professor who showed the Elliott Roger video to Coburger.
Speaker 2: She's got to be very careful about what she can
Speaker 2: say to me about Coburger because of fur per restrictions,
Speaker 2: but she can talk to me more generally about Elliott
Speaker 2: Roger and about all the other murderers that she taught
Speaker 2: her class about. So that's something that I, you know,
Speaker 2: want to look into more.
Speaker 1: If you shot down with Coburger, what would you ask him.
Speaker 2: I mean, the obvious question is why. But I wonder,
Speaker 2: if you know, is this actually want wanted? What he wanted.
Speaker 2: I have to feel that it was performative. But what
Speaker 2: he did. I mean, having having now gone to the
Speaker 2: Poconos scene where he grew up, got to know the
Speaker 2: mother of his only friend, who sadly died of a
Speaker 2: drug overdose in twenty twenty one, there is no doubt
Speaker 2: that he has catapulted himself from a lonely life of
Speaker 2: hardship and obscurity to now he's a household name. And
Speaker 2: what I do know about his teenage is suggests to
Speaker 2: me he's a deeply manipulative, clever individual. I mean, I
Speaker 2: say that, you know, there's in the book, there's this
Speaker 2: scene where he phones up his best friend's mother when
Speaker 2: his best friend has been arrested. They both become heroin addicts.
Speaker 2: His best friend, Jeremy has been arrested for the first
Speaker 2: time for drugs possession and is in jail, and Coburger
Speaker 2: phones out the mother and says, I'm so sorry. You know,
Speaker 2: when are you going to see him? I'd like to
Speaker 2: come to So she tells him what we're going tomorrow
Speaker 2: At eleven whatever time, and she and her husband arrived
Speaker 2: at the jail. There's no sign of Coburger. But when
Speaker 2: they get back to her house, they can see they've
Speaker 2: been burgled, they've been robbed, and she knows immediately who
Speaker 2: it is. So Coburger used and years later, when he's
Speaker 2: in rehab he can't. He appears in her kitchen to apologize,
Speaker 2: which he understands is one of the steps. You know,
Speaker 2: a tonament, they ask you to take it in rehab.
Speaker 2: But I mean, that's a he was a very you know,
Speaker 2: he's thought this through, I mean, and and and were
Speaker 2: it not for the knife sheath, one mistake, he might
Speaker 2: well have got away with this. Actually, so there is
Speaker 2: a perform you know. So I think I want to
Speaker 2: know if this was all, this was this, this was
Speaker 2: what he wanted, I mean, and I and the fear,
Speaker 2: the fear, the fear that the Gonzalvez family has and
Speaker 2: the reason they didn't want a plea deal and I've
Speaker 2: been vocally upset about that and would have preferred to
Speaker 2: see this go to trial, is that their fear is Yes,
Speaker 2: he's now looked up in jail without parole for the
Speaker 2: rest of his life. But he still has the possibility
Speaker 2: of telling his story, which gives him the power of
Speaker 2: controlling the narrative. And you know, they've got instinct and
Speaker 2: I suspect they're right, is that that's what he wanted
Speaker 2: all along. I mean, this has given him a platform
Speaker 2: and a spotlight that he never had, and so I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I feel very sorry for the Gunzalbas family.
Speaker 2: I do understand their concerns. I mean, there would have
Speaker 2: been issues had the thing gone trial. There's always a
Speaker 2: risk that their trials don't necessarily go the way people expect,
Speaker 2: and they would have been years and years of appeals
Speaker 2: or you know, had he been convicted. I mean, but
Speaker 2: I do understand that their worry is that now, in
Speaker 2: the current situation, he has the ability to regain control
Speaker 2: of the story of what happened to their daughter. And
Speaker 2: that's a horrifying thought to.
Speaker 1: Them, No doubt, this has been such a difficult story
Speaker 1: in part of you for reference, having kids, I have
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old college aged Maddie. So this
Speaker 1: is this is a story that I have the deepest
Speaker 1: aversion to from the you know, for the for the
Speaker 1: obvious reason, it's a horror that you don't want to
Speaker 1: think about contemplate, you know, go there at at any
Speaker 1: conceivable level. But this is a real life nightmare and
Speaker 1: you have had the courage to look into it, to
Speaker 1: cover it, to seek out the truth around it, and
Speaker 1: to report on it with James Patterson and the book
Speaker 1: is called The Idaho Four where with Vicky Ward investigates.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you if you had a
Speaker 1: sense of the journey down the rabbit hole, through the
Speaker 1: looking glass, the portal, stepping through the hatch, across the room,
Speaker 1: through the doorway, however you want to think about it,
Speaker 1: of a lonely boy finds that first thread and is
Speaker 1: welcomed into in cell culture? Is that a Is that
Speaker 1: a way to think about it? Is it a community
Speaker 1: of in cells? And how yes? How how do if
Speaker 1: you're in the in cell community in the way that
Speaker 1: I like going fishing and when I when I feel
Speaker 1: that bite on the line right and I and I
Speaker 1: pull up the fishing pole right? What how does how
Speaker 1: does how does somebody from the in cell community know
Speaker 1: when they have a bite on the line in there
Speaker 1: and they're and they're pulling it up?
Speaker 2: Well, I think typically when you know their feet when
Speaker 2: somebody is lonely and they go online and they find
Speaker 2: that other people are lonely too, and its spirals and
Speaker 2: that loneliness very quickly. And again you're talking with young
Speaker 2: minds that they haven't haven't necessarily yet got fully formed
Speaker 2: perspective on the world, and that can very quickly. That
Speaker 2: that sense of finding a community. It's easy to then
Speaker 2: get revved up where it's so great to find a
Speaker 2: friend that you go along with a friend who says, yeah,
Speaker 2: and by the way, don't women suck? And it's almost
Speaker 2: like you're in before you even know that you're in.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? And you know this is I mean,
Speaker 2: I will say that, you know, I've been very glad
Speaker 2: to talk to both my sons in an open way.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of the hardest stuff was, you know,
Speaker 2: along the way writing the book. One of them in particular,
Speaker 2: would send me you know, hey, Mum, saw this online.
Speaker 2: You might want to take a look at it. And
Speaker 2: some of the material I couldn't watch for more than
Speaker 2: thirty second that were deeply upsetting. But I'm glad that
Speaker 2: at least, you know, both my sons have had girlfriends.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's a false equivalence. But I'm very
Speaker 2: glad I've been able to have that conversation, and I
Speaker 2: will you know, it's opened my eyes I think to
Speaker 2: just how lonely a lot of kids are these days,
Speaker 2: and how as parents and as teachers in a way,
Speaker 2: we need to be as vigilant about that as we
Speaker 2: are about someone not doing well in school.
Speaker 1: Does the rage why latent within this young man? Is
Speaker 1: it there as a foundation of character and gets turned
Speaker 1: on somehow? Is it something that comes from without and
Speaker 1: finds its way inside of him? Where does that rage
Speaker 1: come from? Do you have any sense of that? Including
Speaker 1: just the simplest explanation is that he's evil, which is
Speaker 1: which is something that and I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: any type of religious way. I mean it in a
Speaker 1: definitional way that we don't really talk about it in
Speaker 1: a society very much, but that he's just evil. He's
Speaker 1: a killer, and he, like some type of predator, found
Speaker 1: his way on that day. Or is it more complex
Speaker 1: than that? You have any sense of that because he is,
Speaker 1: like you said, retained the control and the power of
Speaker 1: his own story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I want to be very clear. You know,
Speaker 2: when I talked to you earlier, on I mean, I
Speaker 2: was talking in general about lonely guys. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think Coburger, you know, Coburger may have been lonely. But
Speaker 2: but but everyone, you know, everyone who was in court
Speaker 2: for his sentencing that I've spoken to, including the police
Speaker 2: chief and Fat Gonzalvi's family, have said that they've never
Speaker 2: seen someone as untouched by what was an incredibly raw
Speaker 2: and broad display of you know, raw emotion. And for
Speaker 2: him to sit there seemingly utterly dispassionate and removed from
Speaker 2: the entire thing was I mean, the police chief used
Speaker 2: the word evil to me, that no empathy, no connective
Speaker 2: tissue to the rest of the human race at all,
Speaker 2: and you know the roots of that. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: loneliness is undoubtedly one factor, but that goes beyond I
Speaker 2: think that goes beyond emotions that most of us can understand.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's in a place that I don't think
Speaker 2: you or I al most people can even get to
Speaker 2: and wouldn't want to.
Speaker 1: Again, the book is the Idaho for about the murders
Speaker 1: that took place committed against these four young people by
Speaker 1: this animal. Had that been the first time you were
Speaker 1: to that part of the United States, when you went
Speaker 1: there to cover this.
Speaker 2: Yep, I'd not been I had not been to the
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest. I'd never heard of Moscow, Idaho. I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure I hadn't been to Washington State. I had been
Speaker 2: to Seattle, so one of the families had a home
Speaker 2: in loconnor but I hadn't spent much time there, not
Speaker 2: being to Boise, I mean, I I and you know,
Speaker 2: I will say that I did fall in love with
Speaker 2: the people of Moscow. I mean, by the end of it,
Speaker 2: as a sweepstake in the town that you know, perhaps
Speaker 2: I'll go back one day and join the Moscow Police
Speaker 2: Department as a detective, which I would very much like
Speaker 2: to do. But I have a few other things, you know,
Speaker 2: I have another book and stuff that I need to
Speaker 2: have a few other things taking up my time in New
Speaker 2: York right now. But it was, you know, that was
Speaker 2: that was the upside of all of this. And I
Speaker 2: really hope that the readers of the book, you know,
Speaker 2: get that. I think you do. I think I think
Speaker 2: you fall in love with the Idaho fall You fall
Speaker 2: in love with the victims. You fall in love with
Speaker 2: their friends, their families, and and and you know, Jim
Speaker 2: and I j James Patterson. You know what we don't.
Speaker 2: Our job is just to tell the story and to
Speaker 2: tell their stories. We're not here to sit in judgment
Speaker 2: on any one.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's a story about real people and experiencing real emotions
Speaker 2: when something unfathomable happens. And I think that's why the
Speaker 2: book is. You know, the book has been very successful.
Speaker 2: It clearly does touch it called in people, which is
Speaker 2: which is which is what we hope. But it's because
Speaker 2: you see the resilience and the love as well as
Speaker 2: the inexplicable evil.
Speaker 1: You referenced at the beginning that for you and James
Speaker 1: Pattersonior in North Star hero is Truman Capodi's in Cold Blood.
Speaker 1: One of the people, uh that I know who have
Speaker 1: who has read this book last night also compared it
Speaker 1: to the Joe McGuinness book Fatal Fatal Vision about the
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg murders, uh, committed by doctor Jeffrey McDonald back
Speaker 1: in nineteen back in nineteen seventy and that you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much unknown even to this day around why
Speaker 1: and you know, part of adult life in how very
Speaker 1: expedient culture is coming to the acceptance sometimes there is
Speaker 1: no answer to that question of why. But when we
Speaker 1: look out at what's going on in the country, he
Speaker 1: is not the only monster that walks amongst us. Another
Speaker 1: is a federal inmate who's incarcerated that you're familiar with,
Speaker 1: a privileged subject of his majesty, a privileged daughter of
Speaker 1: a British publisher who becomes Epstein's Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice his
Speaker 1: procure of girls, and Islay Maxwell is getting ready, from
Speaker 1: my reading of the situation, to walk out of federal
Speaker 1: prison by the hand of the of the President of
Speaker 1: the United States of America. How do you wrap your
Speaker 1: head around that?
Speaker 2: Well, I wish I could tell you I was more surprised,
Speaker 2: and yet I'm not right.
Speaker 1: This entire.
Speaker 2: Story from the get go has been about how soft
Speaker 2: power works have money and power and connections can buy justice.
Speaker 2: I mean, from the get go that was that was
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein's story. You could argue to a certain degree,
Speaker 2: it was also even before you get to Epstein, Gilen
Speaker 2: Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, got away in his lifetime with
Speaker 2: a huge amount. It was only when he was discovered
Speaker 2: dead in the water in murky circumstances then it emerged
Speaker 2: his wealth was a mirage. He had stolen nearly a
Speaker 2: billion dollars from the pension funds of his employees. So
Speaker 2: now that you have this extraordinary situation where Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 2: died in strange circumstances, never paid the price for his
Speaker 2: sex crimes. Then Gilen Maxwell was convicted of being his
Speaker 2: procurer and accomplice. Now you know, I mean, it's it
Speaker 2: almost feels like it's just been the awaiting game from
Speaker 2: her perspective, right, the clock has ticked on and now
Speaker 2: and now she holds all the cards. She has the
Speaker 2: leverage over Donald Trump. You know, he's got politically to
Speaker 2: give his base something. We know that she sat there
Speaker 2: for two days and gave Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
Speaker 2: a hundred names, and swiftly, or very swiftly, on the
Speaker 2: heels of that, she's been moved to a cushy prison.
Speaker 2: So you know, I mean, I mean, now it's it's
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, you can sort of sit back
Speaker 2: and you know how this blaze out. She'll something that
Speaker 2: will be politically useful to Donald Trump will be rolled
Speaker 2: out that she's given him, and she will and ex
Speaker 2: but she you know, she's a very very clever you know,
Speaker 2: she'll have done a deal. I mean, she's not going
Speaker 2: to have handed him information that will save his skin
Speaker 2: politically without having done a deal to save her skin.
Speaker 2: So I mean, you know, I'm wait, I'm just expecting
Speaker 2: that at some point, you know, I'll wake up one
Speaker 2: morning and she'll be She'll have left the country and
Speaker 2: have been sent back to either France or England, or
Speaker 2: he'll commute his sentence. So there'll be something. There'll be something,
Speaker 2: and the victims will completely justifiably be stunned, shocked, appalled,
Speaker 2: and you know, a mockery will have been made of
Speaker 2: the United system, the United States justice system, and life
Speaker 2: goes on.
Speaker 1: Is that the end of it? Then? Is that? It is? It?
Speaker 1: Is it? At the life?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it will be interesting.
Speaker 1: Online that because the the proposition, right is that they
Speaker 1: just got away with it. The because the because the
Speaker 1: the final chapter will have been or it won't just
Speaker 1: be that she's released, she'll be asserted to be by
Speaker 1: the chief law enforcement officers of the country to be
Speaker 1: a victim when she's a child sex trafficker.
Speaker 2: Well, that is very very problematic for obvious reasons. She
Speaker 2: wasn't a victim. I mean, it's a sad life story.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've said this. You know that a grown
Speaker 2: woman at the age of thirty whose rich father dies
Speaker 2: in murky circumstances. Turns out he's a crook, and so
Speaker 2: she's no longer rich, but she nonetheless as an Oxford degree,
Speaker 2: speaks many languages, has her father's rolodex of world leaders
Speaker 2: around the world. The idea, you know, it's sad that
Speaker 2: somebody like that doesn't think, oh I can I this is,
Speaker 2: you know, tragic, but I can build a life for
Speaker 2: myself and a career for myself with all these extraordinary
Speaker 2: privileges and tools. Instead, she thinks, I'm now dependent on
Speaker 2: a different man. I'm now dependent on this guy, Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 2: who's looking after me financially. So what do I need
Speaker 2: to do to you getting a paycheck from him and
Speaker 2: continue and make myself indispensable to him? And the answer
Speaker 2: is bringing him children to traffic and abuse. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's just you know, that's not a victim. The story,
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think the story ends, and
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why, because because the questions about who's
Speaker 2: I think the scale of this is so enormous that
Speaker 2: one or two names alone won't do it. We don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean Jeffrey Epstein's the source of Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein's wealth is so opaque at this moment. And and
Speaker 2: you know, and I will the money is the source
Speaker 2: of the power. And why did all these wealthy, unnamed
Speaker 2: people want to give so much money to a guy
Speaker 2: with no credentials? What was the hold over them? I mean,
Speaker 2: you're just You're talking about such an enormous amount of money,
Speaker 2: You're talking about so many international connections. I don't think
Speaker 2: a couple of names rolled out by the Justice Department
Speaker 2: is going to sufficiently answer the questions that people have
Speaker 2: about Jeffrey Epstein. So, actually, why my worry is almost
Speaker 2: not dissimilar from the same that the Gonzalves family has
Speaker 2: about Brian Coburger than in a sense, Helen Maxwell has
Speaker 2: now got the power she has. She has She's able
Speaker 2: to tell the story that everyone wants to hear, But
Speaker 2: at what cost, At the cost of making an absolute
Speaker 2: mockery of the United States Justice Department.
Speaker 1: I've told the story before, both in writing and I'm
Speaker 1: worrying podcasts about a man named Abner Less, and he
Speaker 1: was a German Jew who becomes an Israeli police captain,
Speaker 1: and he is the man who interrogates Adolph Hikman for
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy five hours, doesn't talk about the
Speaker 1: experience really for twenty years, and then is asked a
Speaker 1: question about did you have a takeaway from it? And
Speaker 1: he says, yeah, yeah, I did. My takeaway was that
Speaker 1: there are Adolph Hikmans everywhere. They're all around us, but
Speaker 1: they're latent and harmless in democracies, but become deadly in
Speaker 1: an instant in a dictatorship of the left or right.
Speaker 1: My takeaway is it gave me my faith in democracy.
Speaker 1: I've a friend of mine who is a Democratic candidate
Speaker 1: for the Senate in Texas. He was the commander of
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. Spent two hundred teen ds and
Speaker 1: space looking down in eight billion of us with six
Speaker 1: colleagues up there floating above the Earth. You know, ask
Speaker 1: them what is what is takeaway from the experience was,
Speaker 1: and it was the deep sense of connection that you
Speaker 1: can visibly see in the in the planet, which is
Speaker 1: a living organism and perfectly clear from from space. And
Speaker 1: so I wonder with you when when you when you
Speaker 1: go deep into these stories. Crow Burger Epstein, what is
Speaker 1: your takeaway from this type of reporting at the well,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: What you just said, you know, I everything is connected.
Speaker 2: You know, everything is connected, and it's and that's why
Speaker 2: actually having conversations like this are always so important because
Speaker 2: you know, I get so in it. But in a
Speaker 2: sense you do this because there is a bigger meaning
Speaker 2: that is important for people. You know, why do we
Speaker 2: read great literary fiction because in the end, you know
Speaker 2: that we recognize something that in it about the particular,
Speaker 2: that tells us something important about the universal. And so
Speaker 2: you know, I think the battle for the control of
Speaker 2: the narrative is an important scene to think about when
Speaker 2: thinking about Gilen Maxwell, I mean to pull out from
Speaker 2: the day to day noise. And it's the same question
Speaker 2: about Brian Coberger. I will you know, the flip side
Speaker 2: of this is, you know, and I've written about a
Speaker 2: lot of corrupt people over the decades at this point,
Speaker 2: and I will say this, you know, the flip side
Speaker 2: of it all is that in most instances there is.
Speaker 3: A comics that I have observed that if people behave
Speaker 3: really badly in the end, in most cases you know,
Speaker 3: I was at Fancy Fair for fourteen years.
Speaker 2: I noticed this. In most cases, it catches up to
Speaker 2: you that most people who achieve great power and who
Speaker 2: use that power for ill, in most instances it comes
Speaker 2: that bad behavior comes back to bite them. Not all
Speaker 2: And obviously the moment that we're living in right now
Speaker 2: is I think one of the things that's so unsettling
Speaker 2: about the moment that we live in is it is
Speaker 2: that one's looking for where is the karma right now?
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's not readily apparent. But I think
Speaker 2: that one of the things that keeps me going is
Speaker 2: I think I do believe. I do believe that in
Speaker 2: the end people people's actions catch up to them.
Speaker 1: Doctor King said, the moral arc of the universe is long,
Speaker 1: but it bends towards justice. Bob Marley said, never give
Speaker 1: up the fight, and that's good advice. Vicky Ward you
Speaker 1: can find here everybody at Vicky Ward investigates one of
Speaker 1: the best of the best, an investigative journalist, a truth
Speaker 1: seeker author, along with James Patterson, of the new book
Speaker 1: The Idaho Four, which goes deep into the Terrible murders,
Speaker 1: committed it to University in Moscow, Idaho and the colic
Speaker 1: college town, one of the most beautiful corners of the country.
Speaker 1: Story of brutality and innocence lost, and so much more
Speaker 1: about what is happening in our country, beneath the surface
Speaker 1: and above it. But VICKI thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time today. Really enjoyed the conversation and hope to
Speaker 1: see you again.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Steve, I really appreciated your thoughtful questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you, goodbye.
Speaker 4: I'm Steve Schmidt.
Speaker 1: This is the warning.
Speaker 4: I invite you to join this community, where I promise
Speaker 4: to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening
Speaker 4: in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe
Speaker 4: to this channel and on substack.
Speaker 1: Thank you.