Speaker 1: It's such a harrowing account and it's so well written.
Speaker 1: In hearing you speak about it now, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: the level of emotional regulation a human would have to
Speaker 1: have to be in the car with your own parent,
Speaker 1: knowing that the police are looking for you, the world
Speaker 1: is looking for you, and your car has been identified.
Speaker 2: And until the trial, I'd like to think that When
Speaker 2: the Night Comes Falling is the best source of information
Speaker 2: to what really happens.
Speaker 3: This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of KATI Studios
Speaker 3: and iHeartRadio, Season two, episode five, When the Night Comes Falling,
Speaker 3: a requiem for the Idaho student murders. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 3: a producer at KATI Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Gabe Castillo.
Speaker 3: With the gag order firmly in place, reporting in fact
Speaker 3: finding has been difficult and often non traditional, But even
Speaker 3: given those restraints, a pivotal new book is emerged, written
Speaker 3: by Howard Bloom. The Kirkus review says it quote thoughtfully
Speaker 3: probes into the motives of key players in this intriguing
Speaker 3: yet profoundly unsettling story.
Speaker 1: The book shares the months leading up to the murders
Speaker 1: of Xana Kernodle, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogan, and
Speaker 1: Kaylee Gonzolvez.
Speaker 2: Bone Chilling, Brian Coburger details and merged.
Speaker 4: Did the accused killer of the four University of Idaho
Speaker 4: students have a deadly obsession with one of the victims.
Speaker 4: Chilling revelations about the murders are detailed in When the
Speaker 4: Night Comes Falling.
Speaker 3: Stephanie and I sat down with Howard Bloom to discuss
Speaker 3: his book, which just came out on June twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: We started out by asking him to provide a bit
Speaker 3: of context to his career.
Speaker 2: When I finished graduate school Stamford, I came out worked
Speaker 2: at the Village Voice for a little bit, and then
Speaker 2: I was hired by the New York Times and I
Speaker 2: was there for about twelve years, twelve and a half
Speaker 2: years as an investigative reporter. Was nominated for two pullets
Speaker 2: by the Times and a lot of awards, and then
Speaker 2: I went on and I've done sixteen books, many bestsellers,
Speaker 2: wrote for Vanity Fair for a couple of decades, and
Speaker 2: wrote one magazine awards. And so I've been doing this,
Speaker 2: knocking on doors, trying to put together stories, trying to
Speaker 2: get readers interested in what I hope are compelling, true narratives.
Speaker 3: How did you land on the title? It was an
Speaker 3: intriguing title.
Speaker 2: Well, when the Night Comes Falling. I'm a big Bob
Speaker 2: Dylan fan. When the Night Comes Falling from the sky
Speaker 2: is a Bob Dylan song that always sort of plays
Speaker 2: in my head. And hearing a dark night in Moscow.
Speaker 2: I remember walking the streets of Moscow, walking right down
Speaker 2: King Road, and I sort of struck by that song.
Speaker 2: I could hear that song sort of playing in my head,
Speaker 2: your letters burning in the fireplace, and when the night
Speaker 2: comes falling from the sky, And I thought, well, falling
Speaker 2: from the sky a little too much, so just when
Speaker 2: the night comes falling. I remember being out in front
Speaker 2: of the murder house not long after it happened, and
Speaker 2: they just walled it up, put a plywood wall in
Speaker 2: front of it. I was thinking to myself, what was
Speaker 2: that to keep people from breaking in? Or was that
Speaker 2: to keep the demons inside? To lock it up? And
Speaker 2: then suddenly I'm caught in a cone of light from nowhere.
Speaker 2: It startles me and I figured off with light when
Speaker 2: the night comes falling, And the cone of light was
Speaker 2: from a security car that been parked a caddy corner
Speaker 2: was black and the night was dark to the murder house,
Speaker 2: and they were just checking on me. An officer called out,
Speaker 2: be careful, it's icy out there, and I said, thank you, officer,
Speaker 2: and I went on my way. But that's sort of
Speaker 2: being surprised out there. I could almost imagine what it's
Speaker 2: like to be awoken in from your sleep in that
Speaker 2: house someone say there's someone here, and then you feel
Speaker 2: like the night comes falling from the sky.
Speaker 3: Can you just describe how did you start to follow
Speaker 3: this story and what was your reporting? Like I understand
Speaker 3: there were trips to Idaho, Pennsylvania, hundreds of interviews.
Speaker 2: I first really heard about the story any detail around
Speaker 2: the Thanksgiving table up in Connecticut just days after the murder.
Speaker 2: People started talking about it and I hadn't paid too
Speaker 2: much attention to it, and the more they talked about it,
Speaker 2: I was pretty interesting. It was a murder filled with perplexities,
Speaker 2: nothing was known, and I thought this might be an
Speaker 2: interesting story to investigate. I called up Graydon Carter or
Speaker 2: emailed him, who ran airmail, and I said, Grayden, do
Speaker 2: I've worked for for a while at Vanity Fair, and
Speaker 2: there's an old acquaintance and a wonderful editor. I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd like to go out there. What do
Speaker 2: you guys think? And he and Alexander Stanley, who run airmail,
Speaker 2: said sure, going out there. And I said, I don't
Speaker 2: know what I'll find, but go ahead, young, knock on doors.
Speaker 2: I put on my reporters French go out, knock on doors.
Speaker 2: And I was there for a couple of days, and
Speaker 2: I figured I had no idea that I was going
Speaker 2: to write a piece or even certainly not a book,
Speaker 2: but I thought I solved the case. This was when
Speaker 2: no one knew who the suspect was, and I figured
Speaker 2: it out. The house is sort of in this gully
Speaker 2: around it, and most of the fancier houses in the
Speaker 2: nearby that area were members of this local church group,
Speaker 2: the christ Church Kirkass Group, and they had had some
Speaker 2: problems with the community. Their deacon had gone to jail
Speaker 2: or pedophilia. Their members of young women in the group
Speaker 2: had posted videos complaining about sexual harassment, sex crimes, whatever,
Speaker 2: and so I thought, well, maybe someone from this group
Speaker 2: was involved. Maybe it was a sexual nature. So I
Speaker 2: tried to track down the men. Doug Wilson of the group,
Speaker 2: and he's not returning my call. So intrepidly I go
Speaker 2: to the church parking lot and I corner him and
Speaker 2: he's very gracious. He's a very charismatic, a wonderfully articulate man.
Speaker 2: I disagree with everything he says, but he's a very
Speaker 2: impressive figure, and he very graciously invites me into his
Speaker 2: office and he's talking to me. We're sitting almost Caddy
Speaker 2: corner in a room, and he's telling me the problems
Speaker 2: that they're having in the town with the local officials.
Speaker 2: He talks about a war with the police because of
Speaker 2: COVID restrictions, etc. Et cetera. And I suddenly realized, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to solve this case, and I'm in a room
Speaker 2: with this man, as gracious as he is, he hasn't
Speaker 2: been vaccinated. It's the height of the pandemic, and there
Speaker 2: are no windows. And two days later I didn't solve
Speaker 2: the case, but I was stuck in Moscow with COVID.
Speaker 2: So that was my introduction to all this. Then on
Speaker 2: my second trip, though, I began to investigate more and
Speaker 2: trips to Pennsylvania and to Washington State, and I realized
Speaker 2: there was a compelling story here, and I started writing
Speaker 2: the pieces for Airmail. I eventually wrote seven pieces. What
Speaker 2: I thought was, is there a book here? Is there
Speaker 2: a larger story to tell there? You know, everyone realizes
Speaker 2: there hasn't been a trial, but was there a story
Speaker 2: with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I realized
Speaker 2: there was very much the identification, the hunting down, the
Speaker 2: solving of the mystery towards the suspect. Coburger is a
Speaker 2: fascinating story as well as the story of the individuals involved.
Speaker 2: And I found a way I believed to structure the
Speaker 2: narrative and the coherent and compelling, an engrossing way along
Speaker 2: based around the road trip that Coberger takes with his father,
Speaker 2: this trip across country, and my narrative inspiration, you know,
Speaker 2: pretentiously was the Odyssey, you know, this long tenure journey
Speaker 2: by Odysseus. Well, here I have just a five day journey.
Speaker 2: But it was to me rather compelling as Brian and
Speaker 2: his father make this cross country trip, and hanging over
Speaker 2: the entire journey is the father coming to terms in
Speaker 2: his mind with whether or not, oh my gosh, could
Speaker 2: my son be actually involved in the murder of these
Speaker 2: four young people. That to me was a dramatic moment,
Speaker 2: and I use that to go back and forth in
Speaker 2: time to tell this tale.
Speaker 3: Structurally, I think it works beautifully. Thank you on that
Speaker 3: five day drive. Can you talk us through it a
Speaker 3: little bit. I had not realized that the FBI were
Speaker 3: so uncoordinated with the ground officers. Can you just describe
Speaker 3: the details of that.
Speaker 2: What happens is around December eleventh, And this is one
Speaker 2: of the revelations in this book. The FBI, working in
Speaker 2: Quantico has deciphered the genetic genealogy to make Coburger a
Speaker 2: person of interest, built out the family tree, and at
Speaker 2: the end of the father's branch they've found Brian Cooberger.
Speaker 2: They don't share this information with the local Moscow task force.
Speaker 2: Why do they not do this well, the most generous
Speaker 2: explanation would be that they're not sure investigative genetic genealogy
Speaker 2: is not allowed into courts. They don't want to prejudice
Speaker 2: the case. They want to make sure the task force
Speaker 2: connects all the dots. He's just a person of interest.
Speaker 2: That's a generous explanation. A more cynical explanation is that
Speaker 2: the FBI wanted to get all the credit for solving
Speaker 2: the case. They didn't want to share it with the
Speaker 2: local authorities. They wanted to come off as the g
Speaker 2: men who solved this great mystery which the whole nation
Speaker 2: is fixated on whatever reason. When the Coburgers leave, the
Speaker 2: FBI is following them, but they want The FBI wants
Speaker 2: the Coburgers to get out of town first before they
Speaker 2: get directly on their tail. And they don't want the
Speaker 2: Moscow police, you know, And they also don't want on
Speaker 2: the Coburgers to know. Meanwhile, Brian Coburger picks a route,
Speaker 2: and he's not going to the straightest the quickest distance
Speaker 2: between two points is a straight line. He's not going
Speaker 2: that way. He's going down to Colorado. His dad had
Speaker 2: already marked it out, and so he's taking this different
Speaker 2: route because arguably he's trying to evade anyone following him.
Speaker 2: He's trying to take invasive actions. This change of route
Speaker 2: from what the father had previously planned and mapped out
Speaker 2: before he came out there leads to tensions and Brian
Speaker 2: is extremely followed him and his father realizes he's caught
Speaker 2: his son in a bit of a mood, and he
Speaker 2: seen Brian's moods before, so his usual reaction is WHOA.
Speaker 2: He steps back. He doesn't want to get too close
Speaker 2: to this slimmering volcano. So father is in this car,
Speaker 2: the FBI is following. They have vehicles on the road.
Speaker 2: They have a cessna above like a hawk, waiting to
Speaker 2: swoop down at the right moment when they put the
Speaker 2: pieces together. And meanwhile the father is slowly, slowly putting
Speaker 2: pieces together in his mind. Four people were murdered just
Speaker 2: ten miles from where his son is living. His son
Speaker 2: is in this highly agitated state. The father was concerned
Speaker 2: enough about his son to make the trip out there
Speaker 2: to accompany him, and they just happened to be sitting
Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulder in a white Honde, a Lantra, which
Speaker 2: is the precise car the authorities have announced they're looking
Speaker 2: for in this murder. So the father is of course suspicious. Then,
Speaker 2: as a drive across America, two things start to happen
Speaker 2: quickly and by the second day of the trip. But
Speaker 2: first after the FBI loses them and then finds them again.
Speaker 2: The first thing that happens is there's a shooting right
Speaker 2: near Brian Coburger's university residence. A Army veteran has taken
Speaker 2: two students hostage. He lets the students go, the swat
Speaker 2: team moves in. They can't talk him out of it
Speaker 2: or the swat team acts arguably precipitously, and they shoot
Speaker 2: a veteran dead. And father and the son get an
Speaker 2: alert from the university about this, and this triggers off
Speaker 2: more thoughts in his father's mind about the benevolence of
Speaker 2: the situation. His son is caught up in that there's
Speaker 2: something wrong with being with the West, and his son
Speaker 2: has been trapped in this Oh my gosh. And just
Speaker 2: as these thoughts are taking shape in his mind, they
Speaker 2: see flashing lights and there's a sheriff's deputy car in
Speaker 2: Indiana asking them to pull over. And his father at
Speaker 2: this point realizes, oh my gosh, everything I've been thinking
Speaker 2: about is quite possibly true, and this is some situation
Speaker 2: I'm in. And he doesn't know how to make this realization,
Speaker 2: but turns out, both to the father's relief and to
Speaker 2: the FBI's relief, who's also watching this, they don't understand
Speaker 2: what's happening. This was just a traffic stop. They go off.
Speaker 2: Nine minutes later, the same thing happens once again. There's
Speaker 2: a traffic stop, this time by a state trooper. He
Speaker 2: pulls the car over again. It's a traffic infraction. But
Speaker 2: the father now can't help the feeling all his thoughts
Speaker 2: are becoming true. Everything he feared, every thought he was
Speaker 2: trying to repress, is becoming closer and closer to reality,
Speaker 2: as if he's following footsteps in the snow and getting
Speaker 2: closer and closer to his destination of where they're going
Speaker 2: to lead. And he doesn't like where it's leading one bit.
Speaker 2: And as this journey continues, and as they arrive in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: the father is suddenly filled with a sort of dread
Speaker 2: that he can't quite articulate. But at the same moment
Speaker 2: he knows what is happening.
Speaker 1: It's such a harrowing account, and it's so well written.
Speaker 1: In hearing you speak about it now, it's me so queasy.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the level of emotional regulation a human
Speaker 1: would have to have to be in the car with
Speaker 1: your own parent, knowing that the police are looking for you,
Speaker 1: the world is looking for you. Your car has been identified,
Speaker 1: and you're with somebody who who knows you well, how
Speaker 1: do you keep that together, and we too have often
Speaker 1: speculated about what that car ride must have been. Like,
Speaker 1: you had an interesting point, and we had heard something
Speaker 1: similar to about the early days of Brian moving into
Speaker 1: his apartment when he had actually made the move, and
Speaker 1: that Dad was sort of, you know, trying to how
Speaker 1: we interpreted it, was trying to make him some friends
Speaker 1: in and around the apartment complex. And just like you,
Speaker 1: that always sort of stuck in my head because it
Speaker 1: was two part. Either that means, look, my son's been
Speaker 1: a little bit awkward his whole life and maybe has
Speaker 1: a difficult problem with meeting new friends and social cues,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So Dad's in the habit of trying to
Speaker 1: create comfort for his son, knowing that it's hard for
Speaker 1: him to kind of acclimate. That's sort of touching and
Speaker 1: it kind of hurts to hear. Or does that also
Speaker 1: point to I knew something was really seriously, dreadfully wrong
Speaker 1: with my son, and we're hoping for the best here
Speaker 1: and he's off to the races and I'm going to
Speaker 1: try my best, but he's a grown man.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Where do you put that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of a little of both. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're right, on I agree with you very much. I mean,
Speaker 2: the father sixty eight years old. Money is tight in
Speaker 2: the family. He's a janitor. They've gone been bankrupt twice
Speaker 2: over the years. He still makes his cross country trip
Speaker 2: in August with his son to the university for the
Speaker 2: first time. Then he has to turn around and go again.
Speaker 2: And why does he do this Because he's worried about
Speaker 2: what's going to happen to his son. How is his
Speaker 2: son going to fit in? He knows Brian is a
Speaker 2: square peg in every roundhole he's been in life, and
Speaker 2: he just doesn't know. And remember, you know, this is
Speaker 2: not a father driving a young kid off to college
Speaker 2: like maybe we did at one point. Brian is twenty
Speaker 2: eight years old, he's going to be teaching young kids,
Speaker 2: teaching assistant, he's going for his doctorate. And still the
Speaker 2: father feels he has to accompany him. And when he
Speaker 2: gets to Washington State University, one of the first things
Speaker 2: the father takes it upon himself to do. They saw
Speaker 2: a neighbor in the elevator. I think it was Christopher Martine,
Speaker 2: so one of the guys, and he says, you know,
Speaker 2: we watch out for my son. He's a hard time
Speaker 2: making friends. Anything you can do, I appreciate it. And
Speaker 2: Martinez is a generous soul. And two days later he
Speaker 2: invites Coburger to a pool party, and this is Coburger's
Speaker 2: first entrance into the pool part takes place in Moscow
Speaker 2: at a complex called I Think the Grove in Moscow,
Speaker 2: and Brian goes to this school party and what happens
Speaker 2: at the pool party. I interviewed many of the people
Speaker 2: at the pool party. It's also sort of interesting, and
Speaker 2: this is sort of news that hasn't been reported to
Speaker 2: such a scene for part of who Brian is and
Speaker 2: why a book like this can come out now before trial,
Speaker 2: because I'd like to think I'm giving you the reader's
Speaker 2: insight into the characters in this story. Brian goes to
Speaker 2: this party. He's sitting on the edge of the pool
Speaker 2: talking to one of the guys, and he sees these
Speaker 2: two young women, attractive women there in black two piece
Speaker 2: bathing suits, and he goes up to one of them
Speaker 2: and just picks himself up without saying a word to
Speaker 2: the guy he's talking to, goes up and asks for
Speaker 2: her phone number and he gets it. Then, without almost
Speaker 2: breaking stride, he goes to her friend and asks her
Speaker 2: this is for her phone number, and he gets it too,
Speaker 2: and the guy who's watching him says, what, this guy's
Speaker 2: a player. He's pretty cool, dude. And Brian comes back
Speaker 2: and just leaves the party. I spoke with the two
Speaker 2: women involved. He never calls them. However, after his arrest,
Speaker 2: they began to rethink the events, and they realized they
Speaker 2: were getting a lot of hang up calls in the
Speaker 2: weeks following their giving their phone number to Brian at
Speaker 2: the party, and they apothe size that perhaps this was
Speaker 2: Brian calling them but not having the nerve to initiate
Speaker 2: the conversation. And that's sort of the metaphor for the
Speaker 2: state he was in. He had taken himself so far.
Speaker 2: He made this journey from this kid from a heartscrabble
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania community, from an overweight heroin addict to becoming a
Speaker 2: doctoral candidate at a very prestigious university. And he had
Speaker 2: turned his body into a fortress. He'd reached his hair,
Speaker 2: he was looking good, he was in shape, hanging out
Speaker 2: at the pool, and yet he couldn't go to the
Speaker 2: next step of integrating his life to that of a
Speaker 2: normal twenty eight year old, a normal guy who wanted
Speaker 2: to just meet people and have friends and have a
Speaker 2: social life. It was just an impossibility for him, almost.
Speaker 1: As though he mustered the courage and then couldn't follow through,
Speaker 1: so it took everything he had potentially. I've always sort
Speaker 1: of drawn a connection in my head, this is again
Speaker 1: only in my head, between Brian and his sisters, and
Speaker 1: just this relationship he has with women is interesting given
Speaker 1: he grew up as the baby of women and was
Speaker 1: raised by older sisters, and by all accounts we hear
Speaker 1: they're lovely and all of the above, and I was
Speaker 1: curious if you just had an opinion on that. I
Speaker 1: know the dad is a primary focus.
Speaker 2: One of his sisters, who's a family psychologist, plays an
Speaker 2: interesting role in all this. After they get back to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: so Christmas Holidays, the whole family is there, and I
Speaker 2: describe as the sister the psychologist sees a couple of
Speaker 2: things that give her pause. She sees Brian cleaning out
Speaker 2: his car meticulously the same sort of white Hondai a
Speaker 2: Lantra that the police just happened to be looking for
Speaker 2: that was involved in a quadruple murder. Then she sees
Speaker 2: Brian sorting in his garbage, his personal garbage into plastic
Speaker 2: zimp lock bags, walking out of the house, going down
Speaker 2: the hill not to the family's garbage pails, but to
Speaker 2: the neighbor's garbage pails and putting them in. And you know,
Speaker 2: these set her mind wandering, and she realizes there's something
Speaker 2: seriously wrong and what seems impossible might very likely be true.
Speaker 2: My brother might be involved in these four murders. And
Speaker 2: she goes to confront the father and she says that
Speaker 2: I think we have to face up to something. I
Speaker 2: think we might have a problem. And the father, who's
Speaker 2: been having all these thoughts all the way across America,
Speaker 2: when he hears this, what does he do? He turns
Speaker 2: around and just leaves the room because it's it's too impossible.
Speaker 2: It means thinking the unthinkable. And yet, as I point
Speaker 2: out in my book, there's sort of an irony that
Speaker 2: as if the next scene comes from a Greek drama.
Speaker 2: And yet when they identify the DNA on the button
Speaker 2: of the knife sheath, they don't identify it to Brian Coberger.
Speaker 2: They identify it Michael Kolberger. And then they realized that
Speaker 2: his son's DNA. The son of Michael Koberger's DNA is
Speaker 2: on that night. She's so in many ways like a
Speaker 2: Greek drama. The hero of the Greek drama or the
Speaker 2: victim of the Greek drama always tries to escape his fate,
Speaker 2: but he can never can He's always pulled back in.
Speaker 2: So is Michael Kolberger. He's pulled back in. His fate
Speaker 2: is to no matter how much he tries not to
Speaker 2: be his reason for his son's downfall.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard that account of his one sister and
Speaker 1: then the other sister, the middle sister.
Speaker 3: She was an actress.
Speaker 1: And as you know, much has been made about this
Speaker 1: in a slasher movie back many many years ago. But
Speaker 1: the plotline of that particular murder is that nine co
Speaker 1: eds go out into the woods and only seven come back.
Speaker 1: And again, is that a direct connection. No, of course not.
Speaker 1: And I was just curious if you had heard any
Speaker 1: rumblings about that.
Speaker 2: I've heard the rumblings. Tried to connect the dots, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't take it far. I tried to stick to
Speaker 2: what I could substantiate. I didn't want to hypothesize more
Speaker 2: than was necessary about the course of events. I think
Speaker 2: because of the gag order What this case needs is
Speaker 2: an injection of facts. You know, there's such a vacuum
Speaker 2: of people being able to find out what really happened,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to try to fill that vacuum with
Speaker 2: not fatuous speculation or even vicious character assassinations, but I've
Speaker 2: wanted to tell what happened. That gag order is particularly
Speaker 2: pernicious because the trial keeps on getting delayed and delayed
Speaker 2: and delayed. We have a town that's sort of victimized
Speaker 2: by this. There's a lack of understanding, there's a lack
Speaker 2: of ability to move on. They can, you know, bulldoze
Speaker 2: the murder house, the university can take it down, but
Speaker 2: that really is silly. You're not going to get rid
Speaker 2: of what happened that way. What you need is a
Speaker 2: sense of justice, a sense of a clear butt ending,
Speaker 2: and that perhaps can only be resolved in a trial.
Speaker 2: And until the trial, I'd like to think that When
Speaker 2: the Night Comes Falling is the best source of information
Speaker 2: to what really happened.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Howard Bloom,
Speaker 3: author of When the Night Comes Falling, requiem for the
Speaker 3: Idaho student murders. I asked him about Doug Wilson, the
Speaker 3: head of the christ Church in town, who had been
Speaker 3: feuding with local law enforcement and alleging for his own
Speaker 3: reasons that people shouldn't believe the police. To me, it
Speaker 3: seems like it would behoove the prosecution to also be
Speaker 3: in favor of a change of venue.
Speaker 2: I think the defense is shooting themselves in the foot
Speaker 2: if they try to move the trial out of Moscow
Speaker 2: because of Doug Wilson. I mean, I sat in a
Speaker 2: room with him, and he told me, I will tell
Speaker 2: my parishioners anytime a Moscow police officer guests on the stand,
Speaker 2: you have every reason to be skeptical because he's lied
Speaker 2: about us in the courtroom, so there's no reason to
Speaker 2: believe that he won't lie about Brian Colberger. So you
Speaker 2: have to realize who the jury pool is going to be.
Speaker 2: A lot of people associated with the university will be
Speaker 2: just eliminated. There are people who have too much knowledge
Speaker 2: or preconceived notions about the case. And then that leaves
Speaker 2: the members of Doug Wilson's church, two thousand people. Every
Speaker 2: one of them will be skeptical about anything the prosecution says.
Speaker 2: So I think it's really odd that the prosecution is
Speaker 2: fighting the move from Leyta County of the case. And
Speaker 2: I think it's even honor as the defense is trying
Speaker 2: to move it. And the only reason I can think
Speaker 2: that the defense is trying to go along with this
Speaker 2: is because it's part of the strategy that's undermined everything
Speaker 2: they've done since the beginning, and that strategy is one
Speaker 2: of delay, delay, and more delay. You know, lawyers have
Speaker 2: a wisdom. They say, when you have the facts, you
Speaker 2: pound the facts. When you don't have the facts, you
Speaker 2: pound the table. And there's sure has been a lot
Speaker 2: of table pounding by the defense. There's been a rat
Speaker 2: tat tat of motion after motion after motion, just really
Speaker 2: to buy time. I mean, look what they've come up.
Speaker 2: It's been nearly two years and they finally have released
Speaker 2: their expanded alibi. The alibi was it turned out to be,
Speaker 2: as the all no well, at four in the morning
Speaker 2: on a freezing night, Brian Colbert, who was out by
Speaker 2: himself in this wilderness park or there were no witnesses
Speaker 2: of course, except the animals, no cell towers, and he
Speaker 2: was staring on this frosty night at the stars in
Speaker 2: the freezing cold just happened when the murders occurred, and
Speaker 2: we had a way two years to hear that without
Speaker 2: any substantiating information, a properative evidence, and yet this has
Speaker 2: been dragging on and on. So I think this is
Speaker 2: a sort of a specious argument the defense is giving.
Speaker 2: Ann Taylor is a smart attorney. She's doing what she
Speaker 2: has to do with the cards she's been dealt. But
Speaker 2: I think it's a mistake to move out of Moscow,
Speaker 2: and maybe she thinks she's just buying time again and
Speaker 2: that moved the change of venue will never be improved.
Speaker 2: And then so breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker 3: So what I was actually going to ask you about,
Speaker 3: and this is going back to your saying, you know
Speaker 3: how because of the gag order, there has been kind
Speaker 3: of a dearth of facts where otherwise there would be,
Speaker 3: and there has been so much conjecture. So in your
Speaker 3: book was something that we have been just wondering about,
Speaker 3: which is sort of placement in the house, and specifically
Speaker 3: that the dog was in the other bedroom of Maddie
Speaker 3: and Kaylee. Either I missed it or we couldn't find
Speaker 3: it in the AFFI David, So I'm just curious, how
Speaker 3: did those facts come to clarity if you can share.
Speaker 2: According to law enforcement, I think it's been pretty well
Speaker 2: established that the dog Murphy, he was in Kaylee's bedroom
Speaker 2: and Kelly was with Mattie and that's why they left
Speaker 2: in there. And the dog is howling ferociously. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's as if he can smell the blood, and he's
Speaker 2: in a state. You can hear on some of the
Speaker 2: surveillance tapes the dog just you know, barking wildly. It's
Speaker 2: it's horrific to listen to. You know, all these moments
Speaker 2: are extremely dramatic, and I try to do justice to
Speaker 2: them without exploiting them in the book. And it's a
Speaker 2: delicate balance because the scenes are so gripping and yet
Speaker 2: so sad, and while there is a TV series going
Speaker 2: to be made for my book, you don't want to
Speaker 2: exploit it. You don't want to exploit the drama, but
Speaker 2: you want to do it in a factual way that
Speaker 2: conveys to people the horror of it. So it's a
Speaker 2: thin line of a delicate balance and a challenge for
Speaker 2: writer and a reporter.
Speaker 1: I thought it was so well executed in that regard,
Speaker 1: and to Courtney's point, always imagined for ourselves like what
Speaker 1: was the order that night, and who was happening upon
Speaker 1: whom and why? And you know, were they eating takeout?
Speaker 1: And you know how dogs get around takeout, They get
Speaker 1: kind of vorocious and they want food, so you put
Speaker 1: them in the other room.
Speaker 3: Or was the dog in the room.
Speaker 1: You know, Maddie Mogan working out the restaurants. We had
Speaker 1: sort of always heard that and thought that that was
Speaker 1: a potential connection. And obviously, as you know, Zana worked
Speaker 1: there as well, at the Mad Greek, and.
Speaker 3: Then we were never able to substantiate that.
Speaker 1: So is that the connective tissue.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty big bombshell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I've been able to put it together. Coburger
Speaker 2: go to the Mad Greek, he saw Maddie there. There's
Speaker 2: no evidence none, I want to emphasize it that he
Speaker 2: ever even spoke a word to Maddie. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: her beauty, her exuberance, or vitality, just her blonde good
Speaker 2: looks somehow fixated. He fixated on that. And he was
Speaker 2: a man, as I've said, who's prone to obsessions. He
Speaker 2: measured out his life in obsessions, whether it was heroin
Speaker 2: or kicking heroin, whether it was game, losing one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five pounds, in building his body back up,
Speaker 2: becoming from this mediocre student to becoming a graduate teaching
Speaker 2: assistant at a great university. He had all these large
Speaker 2: arcs in his life, and for some reason, Maddie became
Speaker 2: his fixation, and just like the girls of the pool party,
Speaker 2: he could fixate on it, but he could not take
Speaker 2: the next step. He could not involve himself in any realistic,
Speaker 2: communical way in her life. And then her presence became
Speaker 2: not something that was an astonishment to him, but rather
Speaker 2: a rebuke. And this buke gnawed and gnawed at him
Speaker 2: until he tried to felt that the demons that were
Speaker 2: pursuing in the only way he could live in this world.
Speaker 2: And here I'm hypothesizing was to get rid of Maddie,
Speaker 2: to get rid of what was causing him such distress.
Speaker 2: The pain was so hard, and yet he still tries
Speaker 2: to fight it. As I said earlier, when he goes
Speaker 2: to the house of three times, each one of those
Speaker 2: three trips is an attempt first to go to the
Speaker 2: house and then to get away, until he finally crosses
Speaker 2: the line that's dividing the idea and the reality, and
Speaker 2: he comes to the demons inside him, and he becomes
Speaker 2: to the monster. I believe that he was fated to be.
Speaker 3: He could really feel that tension as it's described of
Speaker 3: the Do I go there? Do I pull back? I
Speaker 3: had a follow up question on that, and do we
Speaker 3: know that Coburger or you know, he's presumed innocent, of course,
Speaker 3: as is anyone until they go to trial. Do we
Speaker 3: know that Maddie and Kaylee's room was visited first by
Speaker 3: the murderer.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what the authorities believe. And you know, he
Speaker 2: doesn't go into the room with the dogs. He goes
Speaker 2: right into Maddie's room, and then he's surprised, I believe,
Speaker 2: to find Kelly there too. And this is also it's
Speaker 2: been said that's been reported that the wounds that Kelly
Speaker 2: receives are much more ferocious. And I think the reason
Speaker 2: for this is not just that she fights back. He's
Speaker 2: surprised to see her and he sees his carefully imagined
Speaker 2: plan is now going to ride, and he's slashing out
Speaker 2: in anger at her, at himself, and his plan falling apart,
Speaker 2: and in this state of intense mental and physical activity.
Speaker 2: He just leaves the knife sheet behind and it's carefully
Speaker 2: laid out. Plan is already undone in the first moments.
Speaker 2: And I think, as I said after the murder of Maddie,
Speaker 2: the three of the murders that follow are grim with
Speaker 2: a collateral damage.
Speaker 3: You mentioned something that had escaped me, which was the
Speaker 3: way the coroner described the different wounds on the different people.
Speaker 3: It was interesting, Is there anything you wanted to say
Speaker 3: about They're not discrepancies, they're different words, but they're very
Speaker 3: different words that are used.
Speaker 2: There are very different words. And that that points out
Speaker 2: two things. I think the level of sophistication or lack
Speaker 2: of sophistication of the coroner. She rather has now given
Speaker 2: ammunition that will be used by the defense to raise doubts.
Speaker 2: I mean, all the defense has to do is raise
Speaker 2: doubts with the jury. And the second, how hard it's
Speaker 2: going to be. Two. While I believe Coberger is guilty,
Speaker 2: how hard it will be to make the case. There's
Speaker 2: the dialectics of a courtroom. It's basically every expert you
Speaker 2: bring in, you can bring in a counter expert, so
Speaker 2: you can have someone say touch DNA as the gold
Speaker 2: standard that never fails. You can find someone else will
Speaker 2: point out, well, that's not so fast touch. DNA is
Speaker 2: really not that great. I think case law after case
Speaker 2: law at the case law we've had to impune it,
Speaker 2: and on and on and on. And this foreigner's report
Speaker 2: is going to raise war questions. I think they're legitimate answers,
Speaker 2: but it's up to a skilled attorney to praise the
Speaker 2: questions in a way that they will resonate in the
Speaker 2: jurist mind. And I think they've handed them when they
Speaker 2: can knock out of the park Grohunds.
Speaker 3: You bring up the level of sophistication of the small town,
Speaker 3: which it was really interesting how when you had laid
Speaker 3: it out that Moscow Police, the entire department had thirty
Speaker 3: seven members, and yet the quote backup of the FBI
Speaker 3: were forty members.
Speaker 2: And the FBI brought in their separate their own trailer,
Speaker 2: they had their own sort of offices to keep them
Speaker 2: separate from the Moscow cops in the parking lot of
Speaker 2: the police headquarters building. Interestingly, about the police headquarters building,
Speaker 2: it's not one hundred yards from where the Brian Berger
Speaker 2: was at the pool party, it's right at the bottom
Speaker 2: of that hill that you go up to get to
Speaker 2: the grove. You know, when he drove by that first night,
Speaker 2: he was literally driving by the police headquarters and chief
Speaker 2: Prize window.
Speaker 3: Just the way things intersect such as that, such as
Speaker 3: the pool party. And I won't give away how you
Speaker 3: bring in sort of the pool party in the end,
Speaker 3: unless you want to speak about the potential other leads.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give away too much of the book.
Speaker 2: One of the things I tried to construct was a
Speaker 2: pretty suspenseful, almost mystery story, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: ruin the mystery for readers. I like to be able
Speaker 2: to sit down. It's not a long book. It seemed
Speaker 2: to take forever to write, and I think I'd like
Speaker 2: people to get it quite up in the experience of
Speaker 2: reading it and follow the mystery along with me as
Speaker 2: I was writing it.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. Stephanie and I continue our conversation with Politzer
Speaker 3: Prize nominated author Howard Bloom, whose in depth reporting prompted
Speaker 3: him to write the book. When the Night Comes Falling,
Speaker 3: a Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders, not to.
Speaker 1: Put words in your mouth. But you know, all of
Speaker 1: our hearts are with the friends and families, obviously of
Speaker 1: the beautiful victims, and obviously the town is kind of
Speaker 1: trying to heal. I would imagine was there any takeaway
Speaker 1: just from being there and sort of being in that
Speaker 1: beehive during this critical time.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think healing is impossible for the town until
Speaker 2: there is a trial, until there is a verdict. And
Speaker 2: I think the town will always be suspicious. I think
Speaker 2: you can knock down, bulldoze all the murder houses that
Speaker 2: you want, and yet the demons will still be unleashed.
Speaker 2: And that also is a history of babbagery in that town.
Speaker 2: I mean, I found that a book that was written
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five by a woman by Carol Ryan,
Speaker 2: whose grandfather was a town doctor and he was just
Speaker 2: shot in cold blood, and she writes about the savage
Speaker 2: forces that are at bay in this town. It's still
Speaker 2: a wild western place. Every police officer now has an emblem,
Speaker 2: a shoulder patch on his police uniform and it shows
Speaker 2: the clock tower in town. The clock tower is set
Speaker 2: for one forty nine, I think it is, And that
Speaker 2: was the hour of the day where Lee Nubill, who
Speaker 2: was a police officer there, was shot and killed by
Speaker 2: deranged gunman who also killed a church deacon. There's been
Speaker 2: very many unexplained outbursts of violence in the town. There
Speaker 2: is a task force have been looking into child pornography
Speaker 2: in the town. There's large drug use. It's a pretty place,
Speaker 2: there's a deceptive place, and it's a town almost unverged,
Speaker 2: as one of the lawyers in town told me, of
Speaker 2: a civil war, because on one side you have this
Speaker 2: right wing church group that wants to create what they
Speaker 2: called a theocracy where Moscow is the capital of the
Speaker 2: American Withoubt Redoubt is a conservative nation. And on the
Speaker 2: other side you have one of the most liberal universities
Speaker 2: in the state, a party school, the first ranked party
Speaker 2: school in oh of Idaho. So these two cultures, these
Speaker 2: two values clash, and you can see it when you
Speaker 2: walk down Main Street. On one side of Main Street
Speaker 2: are the old businesses that are owned by the christ
Speaker 2: Church kirkers. On the other side of the free willing
Speaker 2: bars and places where kids hang out. And there's also
Speaker 2: a really good Italian restaurant. A specificatures, really.
Speaker 3: Good dichotomous nature really does come to life. I have
Speaker 3: a specific question. You mentioned that Kayley's father was going
Speaker 3: through Kayley's phone in an effort to understandably get to
Speaker 3: the bottom of what happened with his daughter. Why didn't
Speaker 3: authorities have her phone?
Speaker 2: Well, Cayley's father is an interesting character in this whole story.
Speaker 2: I never interviewed him, but I spoke to a lot
Speaker 2: of people who spoke with him. He's made lots of
Speaker 2: public statements, and to my mind, he's in many ways
Speaker 2: a hero. I mean, he's someone who refuses, refuses to
Speaker 2: let his daughter's death become a cold case. He refuses
Speaker 2: to accept things its face value, and he wants to
Speaker 2: get to the bottom of things. And there's something very valiant,
Speaker 2: very heroic. He's like a figure from Shakespeare who just
Speaker 2: wants to keep ongoing and find out what's happening. At
Speaker 2: the same time, while he's doing this, he's also in
Speaker 2: many ways destroying his ability to get over these events.
Speaker 2: He's caught up in it. He's now I think angry
Speaker 2: that my book, I'm not quite sure why, actually breaks
Speaker 2: my heart. The last person I would want to do
Speaker 2: is insult him. How can you impugne any action taken
Speaker 2: by a man who lost his daughter as a father
Speaker 2: of three, you know, my heart goes out to him.
Speaker 2: A man who has to say to the reporters, you
Speaker 2: send your girl off to college and she comes back
Speaker 2: to you and earn that kind of statement is heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: And a man who stares into the camera when he's
Speaker 2: being interviewed and says to the killer who's out there,
Speaker 2: I am coming for you. He's making a promise to
Speaker 2: the killer and a promise to himself. So in that way,
Speaker 2: I think he's a hero and his actions are heroic,
Speaker 2: and I'm just sorry he's not happy about the way
Speaker 2: he's portrayed. I tried to, I think, to it respectfully
Speaker 2: and with dignity. And I thought I treated his daughter
Speaker 2: with dignity too, And that was if I didn't certainly
Speaker 2: apologize for that. Because these kids were just wonderful young
Speaker 2: people and to not have the chance to live out
Speaker 2: their lives and to be what they were going to be,
Speaker 2: it's just unfair, you know. The heavens were just not
Speaker 2: fair to them.
Speaker 1: I've seen so much footage of mister Gonzalvez, and I
Speaker 1: think I speak on behalf of anyone who's been following
Speaker 1: this case. We are rallying for every parent and every
Speaker 1: family member to get justice. And it's true when he
Speaker 1: does speak into the camera, you feel it like a
Speaker 1: dagger in your own heart.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, collectively.
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree that for every parent
Speaker 1: who's gone through a nightmare like this, and then to
Speaker 1: them specifically, there's no words.
Speaker 2: Really, I appreciate your giving the time and that I
Speaker 2: hope people will read the book on two levels, One
Speaker 2: as this suspense story that's a police drama, and secondly
Speaker 2: as a character study of some ways two fathers who
Speaker 2: become victims of this whole drama of Michael Hoberger Steve
Speaker 2: don Clovis, both of them caught up events that are
Speaker 2: just unimaginable, larger than live and are impossible to deal with,
Speaker 2: and yet they have to deal with the impossible. There's
Speaker 2: attention in this entire book, and even as I go
Speaker 2: around talking about it, talking about things that don't make
Speaker 2: sense and yet happened.
Speaker 3: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 3: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Kat
Speaker 3: Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leideger,
Speaker 3: Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
Speaker 3: by Jeff Toois, music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker
Speaker 3: is a production of Kat Studios and iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 3: podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.