Speaker 1: It became training over the weeks, like, man, we're like
Speaker 1: week six or whatever, and we still don't have anybody.
Speaker 1: We're all united in one common goal, and that was
Speaker 1: to find out who had caused this horrific crime in Moscow.
Speaker 2: This is the Idaho Massacre a production of KAT Studios
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio, Season three, Episode eight, Behind the Badge. I'm
Speaker 2: Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker,
Speaker 2: Alison Bankston, and Gabriel Castillo. Founded in nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: the Idaho State Police, known as ISP, has stood at
Speaker 2: the center of some of the state's biggest and most
Speaker 2: difficult cases. Their mission is clear, to serve, serve, and
Speaker 2: protect the lives, property, and constitutional rights of every person
Speaker 2: in Idaho. To do this, they bring an arsenal of resources.
Speaker 2: State of the art crime labs, critical funding, and cutting
Speaker 2: edge equipment. These are the tools that local police departments
Speaker 2: often don't have at their disposal. On November thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, these resources were called upon when the Moscow
Speaker 2: Police Department faced an unimaginable crisis, the quadruple homicide at
Speaker 2: one one two two King Road. Four young lives were
Speaker 2: stolen Madison, Mogen Kayli Gonzalvez, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Shapin.
Speaker 2: Moscow Police quickly requested backup and ISP stepped in to
Speaker 2: provide support, expertise, and manpower. Their mission was urgent to
Speaker 2: help identify who could have committed such terrific, unspeakable murders
Speaker 2: and to bring answers to a devastated community. One of
Speaker 2: the detectives called to the front lines was Detective Hugh Powell,
Speaker 2: a thirteen year law enforcement veteran who has seen his
Speaker 2: sheriff tough cases, but nothing like this. Today, he joins
Speaker 2: us to share what it was really like to work
Speaker 2: behind the scenes on one of the most shocking and
Speaker 2: closely watched investigations in recent memory. He's joined by kti's
Speaker 2: studios producer Alice in Bankston.
Speaker 3: Take me back to November thirteenth, twenty twenty two. Where
Speaker 3: were you when you got the call about what happened
Speaker 3: at eleven twenty two King Rhade. So.
Speaker 1: I was actually with my family at the time. We
Speaker 1: were driving home from church when my sergeant, Darren Gilbertson
Speaker 1: got a hold of me and said, hey, we got
Speaker 1: a quadruple homicide. Up in Moscow and when can you
Speaker 1: be there? Essentially, so everyone rallied together and we met
Speaker 1: up at the office in Lewis And, Idaho, and then
Speaker 1: traveled up to Moscow. And really we had very limited information.
Speaker 1: And up to this point, I in my career, I'd
Speaker 1: never had like a true like who done it homicide.
Speaker 1: Usually we have a suspect already in custody or on
Speaker 1: most of our scenes, or we have a good lead
Speaker 1: and we're actually like on a man hunt looking for
Speaker 1: that person or whatever because we have good witnesses or
Speaker 1: things like that. But this one was like, we didn't
Speaker 1: have a witness, we didn't really have any leads yet.
Speaker 1: So we got called up there. When we got to
Speaker 1: King Road, got all our stuff set up, but they
Speaker 1: were still waiting on the search warnge to get approved,
Speaker 1: which took a little bit of time, about an hour
Speaker 1: or two. The detective that got assigned as primary was
Speaker 1: Detective Jeff Talbot for processing the crime scene, and he
Speaker 1: assigned me initially to collect some footprints in the snow
Speaker 1: and by castings and stuff of that nature, And so
Speaker 1: I went and did that, and then when I finished that,
Speaker 1: they were just getting done with like the photographs of
Speaker 1: the inside the crime scene. That's so that's when I
Speaker 1: went in to assist to collect evidence, and that's when
Speaker 1: I first got a grasp of what truly had happened
Speaker 1: inside the house, because up to that point I hadn't
Speaker 1: been inside the house or anything like that. Definitely, I
Speaker 1: would have to say one of the worst crime scenes
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in.
Speaker 3: My life as far as the crime scene goes. Can
Speaker 3: you kind of walk me through the layout of the
Speaker 3: house and some of the stuff that you guys had
Speaker 3: seen when you entered that house.
Speaker 1: So it's like three levels. There's like what I would
Speaker 1: call like a daylight basement area that faces to the
Speaker 1: north and when you walk in, that's where and you
Speaker 1: go up the stairs to the living room. There's two
Speaker 1: bedrooms down below, and then when you walk upstairs that's
Speaker 1: the main living room. I'm in the kitchen, that's where
Speaker 1: Zane and Ethan's bedroom were was on the main floor,
Speaker 1: or so I would call the second floor. And then
Speaker 1: when you went up the stairs kind of like Katie
Speaker 1: corner from the kitchen, the stairwell led you up to
Speaker 1: where Maddie's and Kaylee's room were. The one thing that
Speaker 1: stood out to all of us is how contained most
Speaker 1: of the stuff was. Like as far as like blood
Speaker 1: and everything else was in Maddie's room and where Maddie
Speaker 1: and Kayley were, and then also in Zane's room or
Speaker 1: Zane and Ethan work. It was fairly well contained in
Speaker 1: those two rooms, which was pretty shocking, especially for the
Speaker 1: you know how gruesome the crime scene was, so I
Speaker 1: would expect it we would have found more evidence throughout
Speaker 1: the house, but it just wasn't the case. It was
Speaker 1: very contained in both of those two rooms.
Speaker 3: What did that make you think initially about who the
Speaker 3: killer could have been? You know, because it doesn't seem
Speaker 3: like it was a break in where the killer took
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff. It doesn't seem like he messed
Speaker 3: up a lot of things. When you're seeing to kind
Speaker 3: of really well contained rooms, what did that suggest to
Speaker 3: you right away?
Speaker 1: It just appeared like someone knew what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Wasn't just this crime of passion where someone just lost
Speaker 1: their mind and just started, you know, killing people. It
Speaker 1: was something that would seem to be more methodical and
Speaker 1: more thought out. After we finished processing the scene, we've
Speaker 1: turned all the evidence over to Moscow Police, department, and
Speaker 1: at that point we had a briefing.
Speaker 3: What are some of the first things you guys do
Speaker 3: once you have that initial briefing, and what are those
Speaker 3: briefings look like.
Speaker 1: Well, that briefing, we listened to the nine one one
Speaker 1: call that came in, and then we watched the footage
Speaker 1: from the officer's body cam from when he responded to
Speaker 1: the scene, and then they just talked about a few
Speaker 1: of the detectives from Moscow and Police department, their initial
Speaker 1: interviews with people that responded initially, and so they talked
Speaker 1: about all those interviews, and then of course we start
Speaker 1: getting tips that were coming in. People were calling in
Speaker 1: and stuff because everyone, I wouldn't say everyone, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people knew, like Zana and Ethan, Kaylee and Maddie,
Speaker 1: and so it started to get a little overwhelmed. And
Speaker 1: we worked with some amazing partners down here with the FBI,
Speaker 1: and so we got ahold of them and started asking
Speaker 1: them for their assistance because we knew this thing was
Speaker 1: going to probably grow a little bigger than we had
Speaker 1: initially imagined.
Speaker 3: What is it like to chase down those tips and
Speaker 3: you know, do these initial interviews when you don't know
Speaker 3: who it could be.
Speaker 1: Initially, what we were assigned to do is like area canvas.
Speaker 1: So we're just going door to door around the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to find if anybody had you know,
Speaker 1: security footage, ring camera footage or anything like that, and
Speaker 1: start collecting those things and start trying to put stuff together.
Speaker 1: It was literally just door to door, just running down
Speaker 1: all these tips. Some of them were crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, what were.
Speaker 3: Some of the craziest tips that you received? Were there
Speaker 3: any that really stood out like, oh, my goodness, there's
Speaker 3: no way that this could be true.
Speaker 1: We had weird ones about the knife was buried under
Speaker 1: a bear in the middle of the field or whatever.
Speaker 3: They were under a bear.
Speaker 1: They said it was a pack of bears had the
Speaker 1: knife or something and it was where it's buried under
Speaker 1: a take whatever in the middle of the field. I
Speaker 1: remember that coming out. We kind of got a kick
Speaker 1: out of that. So craziest tips that you could possibly
Speaker 1: think of that people would call in. It was kind
Speaker 1: of nuts, but they all had to be looked into,
Speaker 1: you know, because once we get that person, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to have something like the defense come
Speaker 1: out and say we're like, oh, well, this can't be
Speaker 1: the person because you guys didn't go follow up with
Speaker 1: so and so on this tip. You know, you guys
Speaker 1: just blew it off. But that's really the person that
Speaker 1: you should be looking at. We just didn't want that
Speaker 1: to be able to come back and bite us in
Speaker 1: the end, you know, and so we really wanted to
Speaker 1: produce a high quality case where our eyes were dotted
Speaker 1: and our teas were crossed. So it was sixteen eighteen
Speaker 1: hour days for man. I think it was the first
Speaker 1: three weeks. I don't think any of us had a
Speaker 1: day off. And we initially had a lot of suspects
Speaker 1: at first that would you know, check these certain boxes
Speaker 1: that we were looking at for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: That's like, nope, that's not our person. And so it
Speaker 1: became draining over the weeks. You know, It's like, man,
Speaker 1: we're like week six or whatever, and we still don't
Speaker 1: have anybody. Some of my partners that we talked to,
Speaker 1: there was, you know, a doubt in the back of
Speaker 1: our mind. I was like, are we really going to
Speaker 1: find this person? You know, are we going to be
Speaker 1: able to seek justice for these four kids?
Speaker 2: Let's stop here. For a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 2: a moment. Idaho State Police Detective Hugh Powell was among
Speaker 2: those called to assist with the investigation into the brutal
Speaker 2: murders of Madison Mogan, Kayleie Gonzalvez, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
Speaker 2: The murders happened on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 2: for weeks, Detective Powell and his team painstakingly sifted through
Speaker 2: hundreds of tips, leads, and pieces of evidence, each one
Speaker 2: raising hopes, only to leave investigators searching for more. As
Speaker 2: the days stretched on, a chilling question began to hang
Speaker 2: in the air, would this case ever be solved? Then
Speaker 2: a breakthrough at the Idaho State Police Crime Lab changed everything,
Speaker 2: an unexpected discovery that finally pushed the investigation forward. To
Speaker 2: walk us through that turning point, here again is Detective
Speaker 2: Hugh Powell, joined by Katie's Studio's producer Bankston.
Speaker 1: We found out that our lab down in Boise had
Speaker 1: found like a single source mail DNA off the sheet
Speaker 1: and so that was exciting. We're like, oh sweet, And
Speaker 1: so we were hoping we were going to find someone
Speaker 1: fairly early, you know, but not understanding that whole process.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was the first time I've ever worked
Speaker 1: a case like this, you know, where you're going to
Speaker 1: find out who your suspect is through a DNA source
Speaker 1: that you collected at the crime scene. And then in
Speaker 1: December when finally we are in the meeting with my
Speaker 1: sergeant Darren and everybody else FBI all the way down
Speaker 1: to the Moscow PD and with ISP and they're like,
Speaker 1: this doesn't go anywhere. You don't talk to your wife,
Speaker 1: you don't talk to anybody about this, you know, don't
Speaker 1: search his name. And they talked to us how they
Speaker 1: were able to get to the pointe we're at now
Speaker 1: to where we had a suspect. When the name finally
Speaker 1: came up, they're like, well, this Brian Coberger is like
Speaker 1: oh lo, and behold he has this white launtra So
Speaker 1: that was a box that it checked, you know. And
Speaker 1: then oh, he's a student at WSU that checked a.
Speaker 2: Box out right.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine how exciting that must have been, just
Speaker 3: to seeing all of these little investigative puzzle pieces finally
Speaker 3: starting to really fit together, and.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, he was a criminology student, you know,
Speaker 1: and all these things started lining up, like, well, why
Speaker 1: was the crime scene so clean? Well, this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: this is what he obsessed about criminology and how criminals
Speaker 1: reacted to when they committed these crimes, and how they
Speaker 1: almost got you know, away with them, or how they
Speaker 1: were able to do these things with you know, leaving
Speaker 1: the least amount of evidence behind, you know. So it
Speaker 1: was really interesting when all this stuff came out, and
Speaker 1: then it was kind of like that Aha. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're ninety nine percent sure this is our guy. So
Speaker 1: that was, man, you talk about a weight kind of
Speaker 1: off everybody's shoulders, you know, even though we knew we
Speaker 1: still had a bunch of more work to do, it
Speaker 1: was finally we have someone to concentrate all this effort,
Speaker 1: all this manpower, all this knowledge and experience into Now
Speaker 1: we get to dig into truly who this guy is.
Speaker 1: Once we found out who he was, then I was
Speaker 1: assigned to interviewing some of the students there or people
Speaker 1: that he had had contact phone numbers that were in
Speaker 1: his phone that we were able to link back to
Speaker 1: people in the Moscow Pullman area.
Speaker 2: Detective HW Powell conducted dozens of interviews as part of
Speaker 2: the Brian Coberger investigation. Many of those conversations have only
Speaker 2: recently been made public in the Idaho State Police document release.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a closer look at exactly what
Speaker 2: those interviews reveal and what they can tell us about
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 3: One of the reports that you had written that I
Speaker 3: found especially interesting is apparently you had interviewed someone who
Speaker 3: said that he talked with Brian Coberger about capitalism or socialism,
Speaker 3: you know, vegetarianism.
Speaker 1: It was his neighbor where he lived at his apartment,
Speaker 1: because his number was in Brian's phone, and so this
Speaker 1: is how we were able to track this person down.
Speaker 1: And there was like text messages between the two and
Speaker 1: so I guess him and Brian would chat either in
Speaker 1: the parking lot or near their like interests, to their
Speaker 1: apartment complex or whatever, and they ended up I wouldn't say,
Speaker 1: like befriending each other. I think they were just more
Speaker 1: like acquaintances and they would talk about you know, school
Speaker 1: and maybe similar interests and things of that nature. But
Speaker 1: it was interesting, you know, we got to learn some
Speaker 1: of the things about Brian Coburger and like you know
Speaker 1: that yes, he was indeed a vegetarian, which is whatever,
Speaker 1: that's no big deal. But then he only ate one
Speaker 1: meal a day. And as we started to learn more
Speaker 1: about Brian early on, in his early teens or whatever,
Speaker 1: he you know, had struggled with his weight and everything else.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of interesting to learn. And then
Speaker 1: I think they talked about like where they like to
Speaker 1: go hike or run or whatever, and got to learn
Speaker 1: some things about Brian and their communications and his kind
Speaker 1: of more daily activities.
Speaker 3: Did he say anything about his impressions of Brian's personality,
Speaker 3: like saying, oh, he was kind of awkward, he felt off,
Speaker 3: he was weird. Did he say anything like that.
Speaker 1: He did kind of say that he was kind of
Speaker 1: I think if it was like introverted. Yeah, they talked
Speaker 1: about like to talk about politics, about capitalism, socialism, because
Speaker 1: I believe the person his neighbor, he was from Iran,
Speaker 1: so that was kind of interesting and that how Brian
Speaker 1: Coberger thought partying was a complete waste of time. And
Speaker 1: since you know, Brian was from America, this guy was
Speaker 1: from Iran. I think they talked about some of the
Speaker 1: more political issues between the two or the differences.
Speaker 3: There's another report that she did too that I thought
Speaker 3: was interesting, where there was the famous pool party that
Speaker 3: he attended right before the year started. It apparently you
Speaker 3: would talk to a girl who got trapped in a
Speaker 3: conversation with Brian Coberger, which sounds like an awful place
Speaker 3: to be, and he just kept like going on and
Speaker 3: on about personality tests and what they mean, and she
Speaker 3: just didn't know how to get away. Can you tell
Speaker 3: me a little bit about that interview?
Speaker 1: And that was interesting with her because when we first
Speaker 1: initially contacted her, she had no idea what it was about.
Speaker 1: And then when we asked, let go, do you remember
Speaker 1: this person's name? And she's like, well, no, And we
Speaker 1: had already interviewed some other people from the pool party,
Speaker 1: and so I was just like, well, maybe he had
Speaker 1: contacted her at the pool party. So I was like,
Speaker 1: do you remember like attending a pool party this last
Speaker 1: summer or late early fall or whatever. And she's like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, and it's like a light bulb went
Speaker 1: on in her head and she completely was like, I
Speaker 1: remember this guy. He had came up to me and
Speaker 1: he wanted to talk about this survey. He wanted me
Speaker 1: to answer for him, you know, And she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: at a party, I'm with my friends. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be talking about this survey of people's personalities or whatever.
Speaker 1: She's like, that's kind of weird, and she's just I'm
Speaker 1: here to have a good time, and she kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: she felt very awkward around him, and even though she
Speaker 1: gave him his phone number so he could send her
Speaker 1: the survey or whatever. And then I think he contacted
Speaker 1: her later after the party and asked her if she
Speaker 1: had had a chance to do that survey, and she
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't. I didn't have a chance,
Speaker 1: and I don't intend to, you know, something of that nature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of interesting, and that was kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, people at the pool party kind of had
Speaker 1: like the same general ideas like why is this guy
Speaker 1: wanting to talk to us about these things at a party?
Speaker 1: You know, it's not normal, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 1: and then as we learned more about Brian Koberger, well
Speaker 1: he just he wasn't normal. His very awkward communicator and
Speaker 1: definitely was lacking some social cues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, this one is super interesting to me too.
Speaker 3: The hotel's day back in June and July twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: when he had first kind of came out west with
Speaker 3: his dad to move into college, to move into first
Speaker 3: PhD program. They checked into a hotel together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he did stay at a hotel, and I
Speaker 1: believe his father was the one that initially had made
Speaker 1: the reservation, and I think it was close to upon
Speaker 1: checkout he noticed that they had overcharged him, and so
Speaker 1: he came down and talked to the lady at the
Speaker 1: front desk, and then they were able to work through
Speaker 1: fixing his bill and getting it straightened out. And then
Speaker 1: he got angry yet because they just didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be able to do anything correctly, at least up to
Speaker 1: his standard. I guess the lady's story of the event
Speaker 1: was kind of all over the place. She wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about that Brian wanted to show his nice collection
Speaker 1: to her, you know, and I was talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the sheath, and he had this really nice leather sheath
Speaker 1: he wanted to shore. And then he said he was
Speaker 1: meeting some girl named Maddie. So it was just kind
Speaker 1: of like all these things that she was talking about.
Speaker 1: It was apparent that she had read the PC affidavit
Speaker 1: for his arrest and then wanted to come and interject herself.
Speaker 1: Into the investigation, and not to say that she didn't
Speaker 1: have anything relevant to add to the investigation, but you
Speaker 1: had to kind of sift through what was maybe fabricated
Speaker 1: and what was true.
Speaker 2: Detective Powell was also expected to be called to the
Speaker 2: stand if Brian Coberger's case ever went to trial. In
Speaker 2: the spring of twenty twenty five, Coburger's defense team pushed
Speaker 2: to have four alternate suspects introduced as part of their strategy.
Speaker 2: It was a bold move, one designed to cast doubt
Speaker 2: on the States case. Among those four individuals, one stood
Speaker 2: out in particular that lead with Someone's Detective Powell himself
Speaker 2: had investigated closely.
Speaker 1: So Kaylee's father had called in a tip to us
Speaker 1: actually about you know, some stalkers. Potentially she had called
Speaker 1: her dad and said, Hey, there's this guy at Winko
Speaker 1: that was kind of stalking me. And so me and
Speaker 1: my partner we were tasked with going to the Winco
Speaker 1: Foods and looking at surveillance footage to see if we could,
Speaker 1: you know, find Kaylee coing into that Winko, and we did.
Speaker 1: We found Kaylee one evening entering the Winco Foods and
Speaker 1: there was two males that were grocery shopping together and
Speaker 1: one of the males saw Kaylee out of the corner
Speaker 1: of his eye and he started like kind of like
Speaker 1: following her through the store, and that we were able
Speaker 1: to identify the person, and he kind of followed her
Speaker 1: almost out to her car in the parking lot, but
Speaker 1: then it looked like he got nervous and walked away
Speaker 1: and walked back into the store. So we were able
Speaker 1: to pull like his debit and credit card, so he
Speaker 1: got his name, and then we were able to run
Speaker 1: that through the university and are like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the student. So we were able to track him down
Speaker 1: and do an interview with him, and he was wanting
Speaker 1: to ask Kaylee out on a date and he got nervous,
Speaker 1: but he had actually done it to a couple girls
Speaker 1: that evening because we kept watching him through the surveillance
Speaker 1: footage in the store. Anyways, we got a bugle swab
Speaker 1: from him and everything else, collected his DNA and nothing
Speaker 1: came of it. But for some reason or another, the
Speaker 1: defense wanted to say, well, this is your suspect, this
Speaker 1: is the one who did it. So then they came
Speaker 1: and told me, you're like, this is probably what you're
Speaker 1: going to be testifying to at the trial, you know,
Speaker 1: so you need to prepare yourself about your interviews you
Speaker 1: did with this individual.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah. I remember when that was all going on,
Speaker 3: when the defense had, you know, submitted four alternative suspects,
Speaker 3: and then the judge, I think he said they couldn't
Speaker 3: even be brought up at trial because the evidence just
Speaker 3: was really wasn't there are you know, no DNA.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. So that's what I was kind of preparing for.
Speaker 1: But then when it came out, it's like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: we don't have anything. The judge wasn't going to allow
Speaker 1: them to be named as suspects. So I think that
Speaker 1: was like the defense is kind of like last straw.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh man, we don't have any suspects.
Speaker 2: You know, let's stop here for a break. We'll be
Speaker 2: back in a moment. On June twenty sixth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: Judge Stephen Hibler denied Brian Coberger's motion to introduce alternate
Speaker 2: suspects at trial. For many, this was the final blow,
Speaker 2: the moment his defense strategy unraveled. With their last major
Speaker 2: move stripped away, Coburger's legal team had no choice but
Speaker 2: to give in.
Speaker 1: I was actually down in Boise at the time. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that they were having a plea hearing.
Speaker 1: And then literally minutes before it was supposed to take place,
Speaker 1: my sergeant who was down there for he called me
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, you might hear something in the news.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to give you a heads up out
Speaker 1: of respect for like the work and everything that you've
Speaker 1: done and helped with this. And then literally half hour
Speaker 1: later it starts hitting the news and stuff. As I
Speaker 1: started thinking about it, It's one to get found guilty
Speaker 1: by your peers by a jury, but it's another thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's closure to someone that you know who
Speaker 1: did it. They have to get up there and they
Speaker 1: have to be like, yes, I'm guilty of these crimes,
Speaker 1: you know. And I know it wasn't for like all
Speaker 1: the family members didn't quite necessarily agree with that, But
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I was like, any state that has
Speaker 1: the death penalty, they're horrible about going through with it
Speaker 1: putting somebody to death. You know, those persons are going
Speaker 1: to be on death row for twenty thirty years during
Speaker 1: all these appeals, and you know it's going to cost
Speaker 1: the state tens of millions of dollars to its taxpayers,
Speaker 1: and then also all every single time an appeal comes up,
Speaker 1: that family's going to be brought to relive this whole
Speaker 1: nightmare all over again, and it's going to keep happening
Speaker 1: for twenty or thirty years. Well, now there's there isn't
Speaker 1: any of that. He's guilty. He's spending his rest of
Speaker 1: his life in prison with no chance of parole, and
Speaker 1: he can't appeal it ever. And so I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there's some closure when it comes to that.
Speaker 3: You know, only speculate, But do you have any theories
Speaker 3: on what his motive could have been or do you
Speaker 3: think it's one of those things where we just might
Speaker 3: never know.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us in office have our theory.
Speaker 1: We kind of all agree that he was wanting to
Speaker 1: test out his own theory and thesis that he had
Speaker 1: been studying and written about. He wanted to know what
Speaker 1: it felt like because he's doing these surveys, you know,
Speaker 1: like how does somebody feel after they commit a crime?
Speaker 1: How did they feel before or how did they feel after?
Speaker 1: And I think he was, you know, a very sick,
Speaker 1: twisted person who wanted to act those things out and
Speaker 1: find out for himself, and he found the softist, most
Speaker 1: vulnerable people that were in college. They were there to
Speaker 1: get an education and make new friends and make life memories.
Speaker 1: And then he walks into that and totally ruins it
Speaker 1: and destroys for families' lives.
Speaker 3: As you look back on it now and you've solved
Speaker 3: it and it's the cases closed, what lessons have you learned?
Speaker 3: And how does it feel to have worked on something
Speaker 3: like this with so many other amazing agencies to bring
Speaker 3: closure to these families.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just the satisfaction of being able
Speaker 1: to solve the who done it? A true who done it? Case,
Speaker 1: and be able to work with so many amazing people
Speaker 1: and to be able to see what true teamwork can accomplish.
Speaker 1: You know, when you all put your egos and opinions
Speaker 1: aside and you all have a common goal that you
Speaker 1: able to work towards and accomplish. At the FBI, Moscow
Speaker 1: Police Department and just everybody, even the law enforcement out
Speaker 1: where we were able to arrest Brian Koeberg who helped
Speaker 1: transport him out there, I mean, just phenomenal, phenomenal interagency
Speaker 1: cooperation and is really unfortunate that what happened happened, but
Speaker 1: I'm super pleased with the outcome and I hope the
Speaker 1: families realized the hard work that was put in to
Speaker 1: be able to seek justice for them.
Speaker 2: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 2: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Kat
Speaker 2: Underscore Studios. The Idaho Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leideker,
Speaker 2: Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
Speaker 2: sound designed by Jeff Tooi music by Jared Aston. The
Speaker 2: Idaho Masacer is a production of KAT Studios and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.