Original subtitles

Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?

Yes.

Brian Koberger wants to take back that guilty plea and go to trial.

Open the door for a second. And I saw this guy and he was not insanely tall,

but he's wearing all black and like this mask, which is covering his forehead and

his mouth.

With a killer on the loose, police in Moscow, Idaho, trying to calm a

community on edge.

Before we're stabbed with a knife, but no weapon has been located at this time.

There's so much blood at the scene, it's seeping out of the foundation outside of

the house.

While Mosco searched for a killer, he wasn't hiding at all.

Hello, I am Officer Luengus.

Do you know why I stopped you?

I was stuck in the middle of the intersection.

Buried in all that data.

was a completely different story.

He looked up a lot of home invasions, burglaries, co-ed killings, serial

killers.

And then starts to shop for used cars.

They're denied a trial. They're denied answers.

They're denied the opportunity for Brian Koberger to potentially get the death

penalty. For them, life in prison is not enough.

I have to be perfectly candid.

I don't believe that there's anything that would come out of his mouth that

would be the truth.

Was he stalking them? Did he want to attack earlier?

I mean, the amount of planning that went into this crime is a lot.

Evil walked into that house and stole their lives.

If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like

a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your ass.

The University of Idaho is the heart of Moscow.

It's a college town of about 25,000 people.

Greek life runs everything.

Everybody knows everybody.

On November 12th, there's a home game. The Vandals are against UC Davis. So of

course, everybody's partying. All the students are out.

Think about yourself in college.

It's so much fun. You have your whole life ahead of you. You're working hard.

You have your goals.

It's just a good time.

Police in Moscow, Idaho get a 911 call.

911 location of emergency.

Hi, something is happening.

Something's happening in our house. We don't know what.

What is the address of the emergency?

I'll talk to you guys.

1122 King Road.

And tell me exactly what's going on.

One of the roommates who's passed out and she was drunk last night and she's

not waking up.

What is going on currently? Is someone passed out right now?

I don't really know, but pretty much at 4 a.m.

Okay. I need to know what's going on right now if someone is passed out. Can

you find that out?

She's not waking up.

Okay,

one moment. I'm getting help started.

Okay, and how old is she?

Hello?

Is she breathing?

No.

Police pull up to this house on King Road.

It's only steps from campus.

They're expecting to find, hopefully a kid passed out from drinking.

I see it.

Where's she at?

Where's she at?

Where at?

Up here?

They

go

through the front door. They go one floor up.

They find the first body and there is blood everywhere.

On the floor is a female with visible stab

wounds. She's deceased.

They walk over and they go to the bed. That's where they find a second body.

Now this one is a male who is also obviously deceased and cops say it looks

like from sharp force injuries.

Slow down.

Just come here.

There's two.

Looks like fatalities.

Let's go ahead and step downstairs.

Is there anybody else upstairs?

I don't know.

I just grabbed them to make sure. You got your ID with you?

No. I can tell you my name.

Okay. Just stand right here.

Nobody else inside?

Is there anyone else inside?

Stay here. Stay here.

Moscow Police Department, if you're in here, announce yourself.

Moscow Police Department.

Police Department.

Police Department, we're on 34, coming up.

We got another.

House clear? We're clear, yes.

So clean the inside first. You go to the front door. Is there anybody inside?

Is there a dog?

Come here, puppy.

Hi, puppy.

Hi, puppy.

All right, I got the dog.

All right, I got in there.

Start getting everybody's names. You need to start a crime scene log.

Well, get your ass into town. We've got a quadruple on the front.

Arriving at the scene, police immediately speak with Dylan Mortensen.

She lives at 1122 King Road. And she tells cops that in the middle of the

night, she witnessed some suspicious activity.

There's so much blood at the scene, it's seeping out of the foundation outside of

the house.

We know that these homicides occurred in the early morning hours of Sunday,

November 13th.

Around noon, Moscow officers received a call of an uncautious person.

Officers discovered the bodies of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogan,

and Kaylee Goncaves inside the residence on King Road.

The four were stabbed with a knife, but no weapon has been located at this time.

Zanna Cronodal was the first victim that police found. She's 20 years old.

Friends are describing her like she is pure sunshine.

Hi, my name is Zanna Cronodal. I'm a marketing major here at the University

of Idaho.

This is actually King Street, where I've lived the past two years. And I really

like just hanging out with my friends all the time and being super involved.

and school events and everything else. So yeah, that's just a little bit about

me.

Zanna's a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. She loves EDM music, hanging

out with friends.

Zanna is energetic. She's fun. She's fiercely loyal.

She's everybody's best friend.

In the same room is her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, also 20 years old, a member of

the Sigma Chi fraternity.

He was just an outgoing, likable kid and who was a triplet here on campus. He had

two other siblings going to school here at the same time.

If everybody was like Ethan Chapin in this world, it would be a better place.

Ethan was majoring in something that he wanted to do with sports and recreation.

He was the kid that friends described as always having a smile on his face,

always a good time.

They had this unstoppable, loving relationship.

They both would look at each other with so much love.

Everyone knew they were the perfect duo.

They both had this fun, passionate, crazy, but good energy.

They both were the kind of people who cared about everyone and would help

anyone.

The two other victims that the police find are both 21 years old. They're

longtime best friends, Kaylee Gonsalves and Madison Mogan.

These girls were absolutely beautiful.

They had been friends.

since sixth grade.

And they went to high schools together.

Then they started looking at colleges. They came here together.

And in the end, they died together.

Kaylee had already moved out. She was only weeks from graduating.

She was planning to move to Austin and had accepted a job in marketing.

The whole reason she came back was to show her best friend Maddie her new car.

Maddie is...

a marketing major.

She and Zanna work together at a restaurant in town called the Mad Greek.

Zanna, Maddie, and their two friends, Dylan and Bethany, all live together at

1122 King Road.

Ethan and Kaylee were just visiting for the night.

They're all in sororities. These are just quintessential college students

just enjoying themselves.

They left behind hundreds of photos and

videos of the four of them dancing in the kitchen, laughing in the living

room.

The same house where they'd be killed.

Given that Dylan and Bethany are left completely unharmed the night of the

attack, the first question is, how do they survive?

Dylan says she thought she heard Kaylee running downstairs, but based on the

crime scene, it was more likely that it was Zanna that she heard running.

I walked around that house on King Road.

Many times on my trips to Moscow, I think just the absolute carnage is

so unbelievable.

What is your opinion overall about the autopsy reports?

I read a lot of autopsy reports over the years. And by my standards, the

brutality involved in this case, you know, exceeds some of my understanding.

It was a destructive event. There is no way.

that anyone will ever fully appreciate, and I hope no one ever does, what went

on in that house that night relative to the brutality that was exacted on these

kids. We believe this was an isolated, targeted attack on our victims.

We do not have a suspect at this time, and that individual is still out there.

We cannot say that there's no threat to the community, and as we have stated,

please stay vigilant.

Report any suspicious activity.

And be aware of your surroundings at all times. And can you also give a little

more information on the forced entry? There's no sign of forced entry, but was

the door, did it seem like any of the entries were left unlocked by any means?

We're not 100% sure if the door was unlocked. There was no damage to

anything, and the door was still open when we got there.

Did you ever find the back slugger open or anything?

Is that usually locked? What's the condition? I mean, we're pretty good at

locking it. I don't think we locked it last night.

So this leads us to believe that maybe the killer had been there before, that

he'd been in that home, that he was acquainted with it, or at the very

least, he knew the victims.

So the most likely point of entry would have been that sliding glass door in the

backside of the house.

The back of the house is also much darker, and there's a parking area back

there that is just a quick walk in the dark straight to that door.

This was a known party house.

Back in August, police came to the house for a noise complaint.

And then

Labor Day weekend, the cops are called again to the house.

This time, police can't find one person who is a renter or resident of this home

to come and answer the noise complaint.

Later

that

night, police are called back a second time for another noise complaint.

hello miss what's your name xana xana do you live here yes this is the second

noise complaint we've had here tonight within two hours i'm sorry okay noise

complaints parties people coming and going it's a house a lot of people had

access to even when the girls weren't home it sounds like the code is fairly

well known to the front door for my people i mean only people that like know

us like brand people would not know okay the front door code

The two surviving roommates, Dylan and Bethany, they're crucial for police to

start putting together a timeline of what happened leading up to the

quadruple homicides.

At 8.57 p.m., Kaylee Gonzalez posts this photo. It is a chilling image.

You see Kaylee there smiling.

Maddie's perched on her shoulders. Ethan has an arm hooked over his girlfriend,

Zanna.

All four of the victims are just there together earlier that day.

Later in the night, they kind of splinter off.

What time did you guys get to sit and cut ourselves in?

Around 8, something.

8.30 p.m.? Something like that, yeah.

Okay.

And prior to that, were you guys just at your house? Mm-hmm. You could see left

from your house? He then was at formal, because he met with his sister. She

didn't have a date.

Okay. And we were just hanging out at our house.

And then he came over, and then we all walked over together.

Okay, so that was you, Ethan, Xana, was there another person with you? Or just

the three of you? Maddie walked over with us.

Were you guys all pretty much together or just kind of mingling throughout the

house most of the day?

We were all pretty much together and then Maddie left to go to the club with

Kaylee.

And then I was with Ethan and Xana most of the night.

How many total drinks do you think you had by that point?

They all leave Sigma Chi at different times. By 1 a.m., Bethany is back at the

house on King Road watching TV.

Meanwhile, Kaylee and Maddie headed out to a local bar called The Corner Club.

1.30 rolls around, they head out and they go to a popular nighttime food stop

called a grub truck where they pick up some pasta.

And we see them on this Twitch video looking like typical college girls.

They're laughing, they're on their phones.

They take a private car service and by 2 a.m. they're home.

So you were in there sleeping?

Okay.

Dylan got to your room maybe somewhere around 420-ish, but Dylan was already

home at that point.

Mm-hmm.

You knew that Maddie and Kaylee were home.

Do you know when anyone else in the house got home?

I don't know when Zanna or Ethan got home. I didn't hear them come in or

anything. Okay.

And last time you saw Zanna and Ethan, was it the same guys?

The girls catch up with Bethany for a bit, and then they decide to get ready

for bed.

And then I went to it.

Okay.

Was he a skittish dog? Was he friendly? Did he bark at anything that moved?

He was pretty friendly.

He didn't bark that often, but he would bark sometimes.

So there's not some dogs where they're scared of their own shadow, and they

just bark and run and hide? No, he was a good dog.

Okay.

By 3.30 a.m., everyone was home.

But Dylan woke up to some commotion in the middle of the night and what she

heard and saw was absolutely terrifying

So she goes back to her room, but she believes she then hears someone faintly

crying and a voice saying, it's okay, I'm here to help you.

We presume at this point, those are the words of the killer.

So again, she opens the door, peeks out, doesn't see anything, closes the door,

and gets back into bed.

Then she opens the door a third time, and what she sees shakes her to her

core.

I opened the door for a second, and I saw this guy, and he was...

This figure clad in black clothing and a ski mask.

walks past Dylan, and she stands there frozen in shock.

Police

at

this point assume that masked person has fled the scene.

terrified, Dylan starts texting and calling everyone else in the house, but

only Bethany answers.

At first, Bethany seems skeptical about Dylan's story, suggesting maybe she just

saw Zanna in the house. But the more details Dylan gives, the more concerned

Bethany gets.

Did she tell you about whether this person had anything in his hand?

It looked like a vacuum.

And you didn't call 911? You didn't reach out to anybody else? I thought she

was like magic.

I mean, she was still half asleep and still drunkish.

We really don't know how intoxicated Dylan and Bethany were, but the other

kids in the house had blood alcohol levels between roughly 1.3 and 3.5 times

the legal driving limit. The alcohol combined with the late hour and the

effects of fear, it's really possible that those factors help explain why no

one called 911.

Based on cell phone data and the information that they got from Bethany

and Dylan, police are narrowing down the timeline of the murders from between 4

and 4.25 a.m.

Something else we learned from the cell phone data, Zanna gets a DoorDash

delivery at 4 o'clock in the morning, pretty much on the button.

Then her phone reports that she was on TikTok at 4.12 a.m.

But the phones aren't the only things that are recording that morning. Less

than 50 feet from Zanna's bedroom wall, a neighbor's security camera is running.

And at 4.17 a.m., it picks up a sound.

right after it happened is that 421 422 430 she made these

phone calls immediately after the thing okay okay

Police immediately start working to secure the crime scene and collect

evidence in the hopes of finding out who did this.

from dawn till late at night.

The story starts to captivate the nation.

Multiple victims, two survivors in a college town, and a killer on the loose?

You can't look away.

With a killer on the loose, police in Moscow, Idaho, trying to calm a

community on edge.

This just doesn't happen here.

We're 100 feet away.

You know, how close was this person? Are they still around?

Like, it's so scary.

I've walked at night in Moscow, and I haven't worried, but this is going to

flip a lot of that upside down.

In some ways, this took our innocence.

You guys have said repeatedly that there's no threat to the public, but we

don't know who the suspect is. We don't know where he's at. How is there no

threat to the public at this point?

Well, that's kind of an unknown. The individual is still out there, right? We

need to be vigilant. We need to watch out for our neighbors.

The reality is there's still a person out there who committed four horrible,

horrible crimes.

So I think we've got to go back to there is a threat out there still.

At this crime scene, we collected 103 pieces of individual evidence.

We took approximately 4,000 photographs.

We've conducted multiple 3D scans of the residents, and we have hundreds of hours

used by technicians and investigators, including our forensics team and

detectives from multiple agencies.

Police are really tight-lipped to the public, but a key piece of evidence that

they uncover during the investigation is a K-bar knife sheath that was uncovered

partially underneath Madison Mogan's body on the bed.

It's a K-bar knife sheath, which is a military-style knife.

The Marine Corps insignia is stamped on the sheath, which is leather.

That knife wasn't from the kitchen, which means it was brought there by the

killer, which also means this was planned.

The four were stabbed with a knife, but no weapon has been located at this time.

What we don't know.

The identity and location of the suspect.

The location of the knife or any clothing that was worn by the suspect.

And we continue looking for what we believe to be a fixed blade knife used

in the murders.

A week after the killings, the Idaho State Police Crime Lab locates a single

source of male DNA on the snap of that knife sheath.

They run the DNA through CODIS, that's the FBI's database of offender DNA, and

they don't get a match.

So on November 22nd, nine days after the murders, the Moscow Police Department

personally delivers that male DNA to Othram Labs.

It's a Texas-based private company that specializes in advanced DNA testing and

forensic genealogy.

Building out a genetic family tree takes time.

So while Othram Labs is studying the DNA on the knife sheath, Moscow

investigators are scouring surveillance cameras around the neighborhood around

the times of the murder, and immediately one vehicle jumps out.

The same white sedan makes three passes around the house between 3.30 and 3.58 a

.m.

At 3.59 a.m., Zanna's DoorDash order is dropped off at the house.

And just five minutes later, at 4.04 a.m., that same white sedan is seen

entering the area a fourth time.

At 4.07 a.m., the sedan heads back in the direction of the house.

Zanna's phone lock reveals she was on TikTok from 4.12 to 4.16 a.m.

Then at 4.17.32, the security camera across the street picks up the sound of

screaming and a thud.

This matches up with Dylan's description of hearing Zanna say someone's here.

And at 4.20 a.m., that white sedan is seen peeling out away from the house.

Now we're narrowing the timeline down even more. 4.07 a.m. to 4.20 a.m. That

is 13 minutes for someone to take four lives.

The person who entered this home to commit these crimes very likely knew

exactly where they were going within the house.

Police take all the footage of this white sedan and they give it to FBI

forensic examiners who come back with a make and a model.

They say it's likely a 2011 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra, but then that gets

adjusted to a 2014 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra.

Problem is, there are approximately 22,000 registered vehicles in the Moscow

area that match this description, making this a needle-in-a-haystack search for

law enforcement.

Luckily, after 18 days on December 10th, Othram Labs finally completes their

work. It determines the DNA on the knife sheath belongs to an Italian-American

family in Pennsylvania.

The FBI then cross-checks the individuals on this family tree against

the 22,000 registered Hyundai Elantras in the Moscow area.

On December 19th, they get a match and identify the owner of a 2015 Hyundai

Elantra. The FBI calls Moscow police with a name, Brian Christopher Koberger,

6 feet tall, 185 pounds, and bushy eyebrows, just like Dylan described.

Within two weeks of the murders, police are running down information on this

Brian Koberger.

They learn that he's a PhD student at Washington State University studying

criminology and that he lives off campus just eight miles from where the murders

took place.

He's also a teaching assistant in the criminology department.

And that's not all.

Ryan Koberger holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and cloud-based

forensics from DeSales University.

Ryan Koberger.

At DeSales, Koberger surveyed former inmates about their criminal thought

process and planning.

While he was at DeSales University, he studied under this renowned expert in

serial killers, Katherine Ramsland. She quite literally wrote the book on the

BTK killer.

For me, it was advancing criminology, making a contribution to my field in

forensic psychology.

It seemed Koberger had every intention of a career in law enforcement.

He actually applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in

the fall of 2022.

And in his criminology classes, of course they're going to talk about this

gruesome quadruple homicide not 10 miles away.

Police talked to classmates and acquaintances of Brian's who described

him as quieter and visibly disheveled in the weeks following the murders.

Koberger's not from the Washington or Idaho area. He actually grew up in

eastern Pennsylvania near the Poconos.

He's one of three. He's got two sisters.

Back in high school, Koberger was described as being pretty overweight and

that he was bullied.

And that sometime between his junior and his senior year, he dropped like 100

pounds. And there was a switch in his personality when suddenly he kind of

became the bully.

Kohlberger had some small brushes with law enforcement prior to the murders,

but nothing really seemed alarming at the time.

Do you have your license, the registration, insurance?

Were you wearing your seatbelt when I stopped you?

No.

That's no good.

Just being honest with you.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

When he gets pulled over three months prior...

Koberger seems calm, friendly, maybe a little awkward.

He's asking the officer questions.

He

uses

the stop to almost kind of pump the officer for information.

with it with a seat belt like this i didn't um check as i was coming up so

that's why i asked you i should i noticed you weren't wearing it and i'm

on this emphasis and um like i said i'm getting paid by icd and they want to sit

and force the seat belt law so so i was being more aware of that that's where

i'm coming from okay

All right, have a good night.

One month before the murders, Coburger is pulled over a second time, this time

for running a red light.

Hello. Hi, I'm Officer Luengus. Stops being audio and video recorded.

I think you know why I stopped you. You ran the red light.

What actually happened was I was stuck in the middle of the intersection.

Yeah, I was behind you the whole time.

Yeah. So technically you're not supposed to enter the intersection.

Again, he's peppering the officers with questions.

Yeah, there was a little bit of confusion with speeding because someone

had stopped.

I wasn't sure what they were doing, and then they put on their light to turn.

So I thought that maybe they were letting me go through.

Did you see that?

No.

Yeah, like right before I made the turn, there was someone who made a right.

They didn't have their signal on, so I wasn't sure if they were just waiting.

Yeah, so I would just advise just don't enter the intersection until...

Now remember, we're one month after the murders. The public still has no idea

who he is. They've never heard his name. They're still gripped with fear because

no suspect has been named.

Law enforcement has established several key points connecting Brian Koberger to

the quadruple homicide.

He owns a white Hyundai Elantra. He lives in Pullman, Washington, which is

only miles from the crime scene.

DNA found at the scene has been linked to his family, and his appearance

matches the one that Dylan gave police of the intruder that night.

Koberger is a strong suspect, but it's not enough.

Investigators still need more evidence, stronger evidence, in order to make an

arrest.

The cell phone data for Brian Koberger's phone comes back, and it shows that on

the night of the murders, his phone is kind of near his apartment at about 2.42

in the morning, and then it is traveling towards Moscow.

But at 2.47, the phone goes completely offline.

It just vanishes, and police believe that he either turned his phone off or

put it in airplane mode.

in an effort to conceal his location.

Then the phone doesn't ping a cell phone tower until 4.48 a.m. And it pings the

tower located south of Moscow.

Later that morning, Brian's seen running errands at Albertsons and Costco.

Brian doesn't have a Costco card, though, so...

They won't let him in the door. He doesn't seem anxious or disheveled at

all.

So just five days after the murder, records show that Koberger gets a new

license plate. He registers his car in Washington State.

Before, he had Pennsylvania plates.

Inside the DMV, Koberger is kind of calm, chatty. It's the same sort of

demeanor he displayed with the police officers. Even a little curious.

Hello. Hi.

Then,

on December 7th, Moscow police announced they're searching for a white Hyundai

Elantra.

While Moscow police search for the car, word hasn't quite reached other local

police departments nationwide.

On December 13th, a license plate reader picks up Brian's new Washington plate in

Loma, Colorado.

And two days later, Brian Koberger is going to have yet another encounter with

law enforcement.

So when he's pulled over in Indiana on December 15th, it's totally random. It

has nothing to do with the case. And to Indiana police, he's just another

tailgater.

Hello?

How you doing? How y'all doing today?

Good, good.

Take a look at your driver's license real quick if I could.

See, he's right up on that van, man.

Koberger's father had come out to Washington for a pre-planned trip where

they were going to drive his car back to Pennsylvania for the holidays.

Where are you headed?

Well,

we're coming from WSU.

Well, do me a favor, don't follow too close, okay?

The officer lets him off with a warning.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Nine minutes later, they are pulled over a second time.

Well,

I'm not going to give you guys another ticket or warning if you just got

stopped. Just make sure you give yourself plenty of room, okay?

They're let off a second time with a verbal warning.

On December 16th, Brian and his father arrive at the Koberger family home in

Albrightville, Pennsylvania.

And within a week, police are surveilling this place round the clock.

Pretty much every time Koberger exits the home, he's wearing rubber surgical

gloves.

They witness him cleaning his white Hyundai Elantra top to bottom.

Law enforcement grabs a used Q-tip from the Koberger's family's trash, and from

it, they're able to extract a male DNA sample.

Testing them reveals with a 99.99% certainty that the DNA from the Q-tip

belongs to the biological father of whoever left the DNA on that knife

sheath. This essentially confirms that Michael Koberger is the father of the

person who killed Zanna, Maddie, Ethan, and Kaylee.

It's enough to make an arrest on Brian Koberger.

A suspect has been arrested in the murders of the four university students.

An arrest in connection to the murders of four University of Idaho students. A

suspect has been arrested in Pennsylvania in connection with the

November murders of four University of Idaho students.

Detectives arrested 28 year old.

Brian Christopher Kohlberger on a warrant for murder of Ethan,

Zaina, Madison, and Kaylee.

Police also impound the white Hyundai Elantra from in front of the house. It's

basically a mobile crime scene.

Four days later, Koberger makes his first court appearance in Pennsylvania.

Hey, Brian. How are you feeling?

How are you feeling, Brian?

Are you ready to go to Idaho?

And after being charged, Brian Koberger is extradited back to Idaho to face his

charges.

So now Brian Coburger makes his first court appearance in Idaho.

He does not enter any kind of plea.

The same day Coburger is arrested, investigators search Brian's home and

apartment. They find kind of nothing. It was pretty much stripped bare. There

aren't a lot of personal belongings.

DNA, surveillance footage, cell phone data. The prosecution has a very strong

case.

Law enforcement starts analyzing Brian Koberger's cell phone data immediately

after his arrest. And they discover that he was within 100 yards of 1122 King

Road 23 times between July and November of 2022.

Was he stalking them? Did he want to attack earlier?

The amount of planning that went into this crime is a lot.

After Brian Koberger arrives in Idaho, he's charged with four counts of first

-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. His attorneys plead not guilty

on his behalf.

And so starts the two and a half years process of the prosecution and the

defense preparing for trial.

Prosecutors hire digital forensic experts Heather and Jarrett Barnhart to

look through Brian's phone.

They search for any telling digital fingerprints that can help bolster the

state's case against Brian.

It was late spring of 2023 when the FBI reached out, seeing if I was interested

in assisting.

What they found wasn't just what was there, it's what had clearly been

erased.

Ultimately, he used incognito mode in Google Chrome to try to sort of obscure

the records that could be recorded about his web history.

He turned off his Wi-Fi. But as you start to build this profile of all of

the behaviors that he did, especially around the time of the crime, he set up

his device to be dumb, minimally collecting data.

The erasure had a very specific timestamp, and it's important because it

links to Brian's behavior leading up to the crime.

He turned off Wi-Fi two days prior to the murder.

He powered off his phone. It was at 100% battery.

We're going to testify with 100% certainty that's what he did.

That was preparation.

That was him doing an action that he thought would help him get away with it.

We had the data that this phone had been in the area of the home many, many

times. That whole timeline that's been put out there. But now we have the

actual device. We actually have the phone and could match that up. That was

a big piece of it.

But buried in the data itself was an entirely different story. One that gives

investigators a look into who Brian Koberger is.

There didn't seem to be another person in his life based on the evidence we

looked at that filled any of his time.

There's not a friend that got consistent messages. There was pretty much nothing

except for his communication with his parents.

Mother and father.

That's what he called them.

Koberger's search history truly paints a picture of an evil mind.

He looked up a lot of home invasions, burglaries, co-ed killings,

serial killers.

There was one search, Danny Rawling, the Gainesville Ripper. He's a co-ed killer,

same knife.

There were a lot of details there that were just too eerie. And then as Jared

dove into the phone, there was even more.

On Christmas 2022, so after the crime, late at night and into the early morning

of the 26th, he was just like working through serial killers.

And the site was specifically serial killer timelines.

And so it just basically has this list of a bunch of serial killers. And it

seemed, based on the timing of it, that he was just clicking one, scanning,

reading, and then going back and clicking the next one, how they were

raised. what their childhood was like with their parents.

It wasn't only violence that he was drawn to.

The consistent nature of the searches were non-consensual sex acts.

Seeing pornography is not weird, but the fact that this person had non

-consensual, specifically only that, not one other thing that was a consensual

sex act. They were all aggressive or drugged.

Or sleeping.

Voyeurism. It was all consistently non-consensual things.

And in the days after, that same sense of nerve showed up again and again and

again. And this was something that investigators couldn't ignore.

Yeah, that this thumbs up with sort of the Band-Aid.

As soon as I saw it, it catches your eye, you know, because his knuckles look

just so white. And like, it reminded me of like scrubbing your hands for

days to try to get something off.

And then there's this like Band-Aid that's visible that's, you know, like

just barely visible in the picture.

The hoodie picture as well. It's been like sort of a popular one in the case

as well.

The general behavior.

He read something on the news that said police still looking for Hyundai

Elantra, white in color, this year to this year, you know, make and model.

Within minutes, he searches for a car detailing place and then starts to shop

for used cars.

About a year and a half into trial prep, Brian's defense team discloses his

alibi.

He finally said what he was doing on the night of the quadruple murders and how

he was not there and he is not the one responsible.

And take a guess what he was doing.

Driving in the night by himself looking at the moon and the stars.

No.

We know Zanna was awake at the time Brian entered the house because of her

phone log and her DoorDash order.

Investigators believe Zanna heard Murphy barking and that she heard the commotion

upstairs in Maddie's room, so she came out of her bedroom to see what was going

on.

We know how intense the struggle was. It was evidenced by all of those defensive

wounds on Zanna's body.

Ultimately, she collapsed in the doorway of her bedroom.

You've got people that are reactive.

You've got individuals that are fighting back. You've got a perpetrator that is

in the midst of a massacre.

During the two and a half years of preparing for trial, some of the

victims' families expressed their frustration at just how long the

judicial process is taking. There's countless delays.

Then, just weeks before this trial is set to begin, bombshell.

There is going to be no trial in the Brian Coburger case. This is breaking

news. Just came in an hour ago.

I am not going to lie.

I did not expect this.

If the defendant wants to avoid trial, he only has one option, and that's to

plead guilty as charged to all five felonies, waive appeal so it's final and

conclusive and it won't go on for years as capital cases are wont to do, and

know that he was going to be spending the rest of his life in prison.

Did you?

On November 13, 2022,

we enter the residence at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to

commit the felony crime of murder. Yes.

Even when Judge Stephen Hippler delivers this emotional statement, this moment in

the courtroom, the only thing Brian Koberger can offer is a blank stare.

During the quiet morning hours of November 13, 2022...

A faceless coward breached the tranquility of six beautiful young

people and senselessly slaughtered four of them.

Even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how could anyone

ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?

I hereby sentence Mr. Kohlberger as follows.

On count one, burglary.

Ten years fixed.

First degree murder.

I sentence the defendant.

to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The sentences on counts one, two, three, four, and five shall run consecutively

to one another.

We were asked if we had ever been offered a plea deal or gave one. We're

not in it. We're in it for the death penalty.

The choice is he could be fired at or he could take a shot.

Those are the two.

options that we would agree to.

Kaylee and Zana's families are furious.

They're denied a trial. They're denied closure.

They're denied explanation.

It looks like the Gonsalves family is the first to come out of the Ada County

Courthouse right there. Let's take a look and a listen to see what they have

to say.

The negotiation wasn't, wasn't justice.

It was just a, it was a shortcut.

We said from the very beginning, we're not interested in a shortcut for our

daughter. When the prosecution followed the same path we've seen before, closed

doors, limited input, and a plea deal handed down without our voice, it became

painfully clear that Kaylee was being treated just like another case.

Madison and Ethan's families, they support the plea deal as much as you can

in a situation like this, just for the sake of closure.

We love you, Maddie, and we miss you.

We support.

the plea agreement 100%. While we know there are some who do not support it, we

ask that they respect our belief that this is the best outcome possible for

the victims, their families, and the state of Idaho.

We have closure.

We embark on a path of hope and healing.

The social media response is also divided and just as passionate as it has

been the whole time.

Undoubtedly, the most heartbreaking part of the sentencing are the emotional

impact statements given by the family members. They're gut-wrenching and

they're scathing against Brian Koberger.

On November 13, 2022, a piece of my heart was ripped away.

There's no way to ever fully describe the weight of losing my sister, my best

friend. She truly did live every day to the fullest.

Yet her story was cut short by an act of evil.

I believe in a God whose justice is not bound by this courtroom.

I find peace knowing that judgment ultimately belongs to him.

Maddie was my first grandchild.

When the four kids were murdered, the foundation fell out of our world.

A dead killer doesn't kill again.

So while I'm disappointed the firing squad won't get to take their shots at

you, I'm confident that the men in prison will have their way with you in

more ways than one.

Disappointments like you thrive on pain, on fear, and on the illusion of power.

And I won't feed your beast.

Instead, I will call you what you are.

Sociopath.

Psychopath.

Murderer.

You didn't win.

You just exposed yourself as the coward you are. You're a delusional, pathetic,

hypochondriac loser who thought you were so much smarter than everybody else.

If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like

a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.

They are everything that you could never be.

Loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave, and powerful.

Today, we are here to finish what you started.

Today, we are here to prove to the world that you picked the wrong families, the

wrong state, the wrong police officers, the wrong community.

You tried to break our community apart.

Instead, your actions have united everyone and they're discussed for you.

Even though it's been years since the deaths of Kaylee and Madison and Ethan

and Zanna, there is an overwhelming feeling of closure.

This case reminds us why we answer that call, why we stand for victims, why we

fight. In this case, why we fight pure evil and why we keep going.

On behalf of the FBI, we offer our deepest condolences to the families of

Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves.

zanner canoodle and ethan chapin the culmination of this case was a long time

coming and we hope the victims families and friends have some sense of peace in

knowing that brian coberger is being held responsible and accountable for his

heinous actions you know especially during the sentencing my my mind and my

heart was with the families it's absolutely unimaginable what they have

gone through and will continue to go through because this isn't over for them

it never will be I cannot imagine losing someone, especially a child, and

especially in that manner.

I just, I can't fathom it.

Without a trial, without a statement from Brian Koberger, there are still so

many questions in this case.

The evidence suggested that there was a reason that this particular house was

chosen. What that reason is, we don't know.

Is there a reason why it's part of the agreement and it requires...

and Taylor to have her client sit down with you all and answer some of these

questions. I have to be perfectly candid.

I don't believe that there is anything that would come out of his mouth that

would be the truth.

It is a part of our history. It'll never go away.

I just like to reiterate how absolutely blown away and proud I was of all of the

law enforcement and investigators that were involved in this case.

Their efforts truly got us to where we are today.

She was a beautiful girl.

Santa, you will not be forgotten.

You have impacted so many lives and have given people so much love.

Maddie was my best friend.

She was the first person I talked to every morning and the last person I

talked to before bed.

I love you so much. This

case

has become one of the defining true crime stories of our time because it

violates everything that we think and believe about safety in our modern

world. We live in an era of doorbell cameras, cell phone records, DNA

databases, and near constant digital surveillance.

And yet, in the middle of a busy college town, on a Saturday night, four young

students were slaughtered in a matter of minutes inside their home.

Even after an arrest, a guilty plea, and a life sentence, a major question still

haunts this case. It's the simplest one.

Why?

Ultimately, the public's connection, their fascination with this case, it

shouldn't be about Brian Koberger. It needs to be about those four lives who

were lost that night.

Kaylee, Madison, Zanna, and Ethan are familiar.

We all know them or someone liked them.

They're any young person doing any ordinary thing. Going to school, falling

in love, going to parties, making friends, having a good time. They're

imagining the life they still have ahead of them.

Most murders are committed by somebody who knows the victim. A friend, a

partner, an acquaintance, a family member.

Not here.

What happened here is something far rarer.

These victims weren't targeted because of something that they had done. They

didn't knowingly put themselves in danger in any way.

They were simply at home.

This is one of the more heinous and senseless crimes that I have ever seen.

Brian Koberger had a period of time in which he could go back to the court and

change his mind about his guilty plea.

And now he wants to withdraw his plea and go to trial. And I'm not surprised

in the very least. I've been saying for a long time that I could feel it in my

bones that this was not the last that we would hear of Brian Koberger.

Right after the news broke, the Gonsalves family issued a scathing

statement.

Maybe that's why this case is so difficult to look away from. Because

beyond the evidence and the defendant and the speculation and the rumors and

the questions.

There is a fear that is almost impossible to dismiss, that there are at

times no warning, that there's no mistake to learn from, that there is no

simple way to reassure ourselves that this can never happen to us.

I think that the focus should now be on those beautiful kids and

the lives that were lost.