Inside Bryan Kohberger's Childhood & Family Life: How Idaho Student Murderer May Have Come To Be

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On "Forbes True Crime," On "Forbes True Crime," Howard Blum, author of "When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders,"  spoke about the early life of Bryan Kohberger which may have led to his becoming a mass-murderer.

Transcript

00:00And you know a lot of Brian Koberger. Your book really goes into the type of person he was

00:05from high school to when the murders took place. And it was really shocking when he ended up

00:12ultimately pleading guilty because from the start, he said he was innocent. Ann Taylor,

00:17his attorney, was saying Brian Koberger's innocent. Now he's pleading guilty to all

00:22four murders, first degree and one count of burglary. But in return, he's in jail for life

00:28now. No possibility of parole, but the death penalty is off the table. Based on the Brian

00:33Koberger you know, are you surprised by this? Because you detail accounts of him thinking he's

00:38the smartest person in the room. He's a type of person that needs to get the last word in.

00:42He thinks he's the most intelligent. So what do you make of this twist?

00:47I think by this plea deal, Brian Koberger sees himself as having the last laugh, actually.

00:54Look at his life. He started out as a poor student. He was a heroin addict. He was overweight. And yet he

01:06finds the will to transform himself. He transforms himself. He loses 125 pounds, starts working out,

01:14turns his body into a fortress. He moves from a community college, a two-year community college,

01:21to a four-year liberal arts college at DeSalle, and then to a distinguished graduate program

01:28at Washington State University. He finds the will to kick heroin. He does all these transformative

01:34things. And yet, once he gets out to Washington State, he realizes, in effect, biology is destiny.

01:41He can't really change who he is. He will always never be able to fit into the real world.

01:46And so his, I believe, this is speculation, his fascination with crime led him to see if he could

01:53commit a perfect crime. And now he got close. Very close, except for that one mistake. But now when

02:02he's in prison, I think after a while, he'll be getting bored. And he now will become this forensic

02:08psychologist that he always wanted to be. He will be able to talk to other people in the field.

02:13He will be a peer with them. They will come to his jail cell. He will give interviews. And he will

02:18now expand on how he committed these crimes. He will now become an authority. And I think that would

02:26be a very fulfilling life for him. He'll be in a sheltered world, and he'll be able to achieve his

02:33ambition of accomplishing something. In his twisted way, I think he's going to come out, I hate to say

02:41this, a winner in this case. And you said before, he's the type of person that was living in the

02:47shadows, even after he kicked heroin, even after he dropped all that weight. He went to a pool party

02:53when he first got to Washington State University, and he wasn't being paid really any attention.

02:58People, witnesses there kind of were creeped out by him. They thought, oh, that's just kind of that

03:03weird guy. Some of them were talking to him to be polite. Others were just kind of weirded out by

03:07the whole social interaction. And Steve Gonsalves, who is Kaylee Gonsalves' father, agrees with you

03:13there. He thinks that Brian Koberger is now just going to drip, drip, drip information and interviews,

03:19exclusive interviews after, once he's in jail now, since he's pleaded guilty. But why now?

03:25Why do you think he decided to say, hey, right before this goes to trial, I'm just going to plead guilty?

03:31Do you think the defense just said, believed now he's guilty?

03:36Well, my reporting gave me this insight into what has happened. Earlier on in the case, a couple of

03:43months ago, the defense team realized you were going to wind up, my client's going to wind up in front of

03:50a firing squad. So they approached Brian Koberger and said, you need to take a plea deal. He called up

03:57his mother. And according to the reporting I had, his mother said no. Whether she believed he was

04:02innocent, or maybe she just didn't want to face the fact that her son was a monster, she said no.

04:09So Brian told his team, no plea deal. Then after the two recent rulings that we discussed earlier in June,

04:21where they threw out the alibi, they threw out the alternate perpetrator, a defense. Brian Koberger's team

04:28approached him again. And now something else had happened. There had been a special, Dateline special,

04:37I think it aired in mid-May. I was part of that team, but a very small role. I talked a bit, did a little

04:44bit of investigation, but they uncovered one really interesting fact. Two hours after the murders

04:51occurred, at approximately 6 a.m. in the morning, Brian Koberger called a phone registered to his father.

04:58According to my reporting, he had spoken with his mother for 54 minutes, 54 minutes, nearly an hour.

05:06And in the course of that conversation, no one knows what was said, except Koberger and whomever he spoke to.

05:12However, once this phone call was made public, Koberger's parents knew beyond a shadow of a doubt

05:21that the prosecution had knowledge of this call and that they would bring this call up in the courtroom

05:27case. They would have to go on the stand and testify under oath as to what was said and what

05:33suspicions they might have had about their son's actions. And when they explained this to their son,

05:38their son now began to realize nothing akin to remorse in any way that you and I might understand it,

05:46but he did feel something towards his parents and he did not want to put them in a situation that would

05:53jeopardize them legally. So when his defense team came to him and said it's time to cut a deal,

06:01he factored in the situation his parents were in and also the fact that he'd be facing the long guns

06:07of a firing squad. And he said, well, it makes more sense to try to get a deal. So they approached the

06:14prosecution. Why the prosecution gave in, that to me, left me stunned. As we said earlier, you know,

06:21they were holding all the cards. They've been at this for two and a half years. And I couldn't quite at

06:27first understand why they did this. Yet the more I thought of it, it seemed like the men in power,

06:35honorable men in Idaho, had been wanting to move this case away as quickly as possible. I mean,

06:41look at the history. The first judge in the case, Judge John Judge, as soon as he could, he moved the

06:47case from Moscow to Boise. And then he could have gone with the case. He could have been the presiding

06:52judge of the trial. He said, no, I don't want this. And in fact, retired from the bench.

06:56Then there was the police chief, police chief Fry. He has led the seven week manhunt that captured

07:04Kohlberger. He cried on national television with grief and elation, a mixture of both when Kohlberger's

07:12arrest was announced. And then rather, rather profunctually, he retired from the police department

07:18in Moscow. He now is a police chief in Washington state. He had had enough. And then the University of

07:25Idaho itself, what happened to the murder house? They couldn't wait to demolish it. They sent bulldozers

07:30in at six in the morning, knocked it all down as if they could forget about it. I think honorable

07:36men in Idaho just wanted to move on. And the prosecutor, Bill Thompson, who'd been living with

07:43this case for two and a half years, he felt enough is enough. The prospect of a three month trial was just

07:50too dispiriting. And he just didn't have the appetite to fight. Perhaps he wanted to spend

07:56the summer going fishing rather than battling in a courtroom over such a horrific case.

08:01I want to get back to the fact that Brian Kohlberger's parents might have had to take this

08:07stand because in your book, I mean, one of the most fascinating elements is you detail this car ride

08:13that Brian Kohlberger and his father, Michael, have from Washington state to their home in

08:19Pennsylvania, cross country trip. And Brian Kohlberger's father, Michael, he was concerned

08:24enough about his son that he flew out there to make this trip. And throughout your reporting,

08:29you say that he was he was having some thoughts. There was a kernel of a doubt in his mind that,

08:34hey, maybe my son could potentially have somehow been involved with this. He had this sick

08:39feeling in his stomach all throughout the trip across the country. Then you get to their home

08:44in Pennsylvania and his sister, his other daughter, Brian Kohlberger's sister, tells him,

08:50hey, I saw Brian scrubbing out his car with a vacuum with latex gloves on. I saw him digging

08:56through the trash and separating the trash, separating his own trash. He also was dumping

09:00the trash in his neighbor's can. And Michael Kohlberger, the father kind of ignored this. Was the concern

09:07then if he was on the stand, if the parents were on the stand, they would perjure themselves and say,

09:12hey, no, he might have had some troubles in his childhood, but he's a good person. He wouldn't do

09:16this. Or the other fact that they could tell the truth and voice their concerns. What do you think

09:23was the more likely route there? I think you raise an interesting point. Let's go back to the trip

09:30they take across America. Brian Kohlberger's father, who's 68 years old, flies out to drive

09:38back across country with his son just a couple of weeks after the murders. It's an expense for a

09:44family. The father was a custodial engineer at a local high school. He'd been bankrupt twice,

09:51but he feels it's important enough to make this trip with his 28-year-old son that he has to go out

09:57there. As soon as he arrives, Michael Kohlberger, the father in Washington state, he begins to realize

10:06that his son, something's up. His son's in a keyed up state. He's seen this problematic Brian before,

10:12and he knows to be wary. He also knows that just nine miles away from where his son is living,

10:19four young people were horribly murdered. Does he have suspicions at this point? Well,

10:25they begin to build. The sun changes the route, the way they're going to go home.

10:31Twice during the trip, they are stopped by Indiana State Patrolman, and it's a traffic stop, but

10:39there are flashing lights, and his father, in his mind, is almost as if he's wondering, could they be

10:45coming for my son? I mean, it's a moment put with high drama. And also, they're sitting shoulder to

10:51shoulder in a white Hyundai Elantra. And every policeman in the country is looking for a white

10:56Hyundai Elantra that's involved in this crime. And here he has his problematic son. So he's putting

11:02the pieces together as they drive across country to Pennsylvania. He can't quite get there. It's too

11:10large a moment for him to confront directly. And when he gets back to Pennsylvania, and his sister tells him,

11:17well, you know, Dad, I think we might have a problem with Brian. He again, just sort of,

11:25according to what I've been told, shrugs and leaves the room. They can't confront it. But if he had,

11:30but if there were a trial, he would have to go on the stand. Other family members would have to go on

11:36the stand. And they would have to testify to what they've seen, and what they had heard, and what they

11:41had thought. And this might have put them in legal jeopardy for not reporting Brian Suna.

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