- 7 weeks ago
BestTVShows
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00:00This is the police body camera video, captured on November 13, 2022, as Moscow, Idaho police
00:00:12responded to a 911 call.
00:00:16Yep, where's she at? Where's she at?
00:00:22Moscow Police Department, if you're in here, you have to tell.
00:00:25But nothing would prepare police or this tight-knit community for the shocking murders that they
00:00:31discover in this house on King Road.
00:00:34A murder mystery in Idaho. Four University of Idaho students were found dead in their
00:00:38off-campus apartment. It's now being investigated as a homicide.
00:00:41We all underestimated how interested the rest of the nation and the world would be in this case.
00:00:48Nobody was prepared.
00:00:50Roommate on scene states something about a male being in the room with them, trying to get further.
00:00:54You may think you've heard this story, but tonight, we'll take you inside the investigation.
00:01:00We'll show you body camera video from the officer who first responded to the scene,
00:01:05and then the frantic moments that one of the surviving roommates recounts a man in a mask
00:01:10inside the house.
00:01:12I couldn't really see much of him, but I'm almost positive. He's wearing a full-back outfit,
00:01:17and he had this mask that was just over his forehead and over his mouth.
00:01:22You'll hear from the friends who were on the scene that morning, even before police arrived.
00:01:28As soon as you get there, you know something's wrong.
00:01:32And then what happened next?
00:01:34I went into the house.
00:01:36I think I walked just right in the door, and Hunter already was like, everybody get out.
00:01:43And then he was like, somebody call 911.
00:01:47And you'll hear from investigators who launched a nationwide manhunt to unmask and arrest the killer,
00:01:54who was found thousands of miles away from the crime scene.
00:01:58You interviewed Brian Koberger.
00:01:59Yes.
00:02:00He would try to go and ask, well, why are you guys really here?
00:02:05And we said, well, I feel like you probably know why we're here.
00:02:20But this all began in 2022.
00:02:23It was the start of a new school year, a time of anticipation, hope, promise.
00:02:28Coming back to school at the University of Idaho really starts in the middle of August.
00:02:33You're packing up your car.
00:02:36It's filled to the brim.
00:02:38You can fit your entire life into a couple of boxes in the back of a sedan.
00:02:43What a time.
00:02:47Moscow at the beginning of the semester was definitely a very happy place.
00:02:52And like, you step on campus and it's like, okay, this feels right.
00:02:56This feels good to be here.
00:02:58Everyone's really excited.
00:03:00The new people, the new classes, things we can do, people to meet.
00:03:05You know, you raise your kids and you're, you know, you just wonder, you know,
00:03:10at what point are they going to kind of feel like they're independent enough
00:03:14to kind of fly the, out of the nest, I guess, if you will.
00:03:18It's a cliche, but.
00:03:19Starting to adult.
00:03:20Yeah, starting to, you know.
00:03:25Among the students arriving here are 21-year-old seniors, Kaylee Gonsalves and Madison Mogan,
00:03:31along with Zana Kronodal, a 20-year-old junior and 19-year-old sophomore Ethan Chapin.
00:03:37Four students just starting out, not knowing that soon their lives would violently collide
00:03:43with a PhD student in criminology at another university just across the state line.
00:03:49So on November 12th is when that iconic photo is taken, the last known photo of the four victims
00:04:00all together with their roommates, Bethany and Dylan, all six of them before their big night on game day.
00:04:08They've had so many Saturday nights just like this.
00:04:11There was nothing out of the ordinary about this Saturday night in Moscow, or so they thought.
00:04:16Hours later, friends make a horrific discovery.
00:04:41What unfolds next is the stuff of nightmares.
00:04:44We saw it on our phones before they told us directly.
00:04:50It was like, what?
00:04:51Quadruple homicide?
00:04:53We're calling Kaylee, it's going to voicemail.
00:04:55We're calling Maddie, she's not picking up.
00:04:57And in our minds,
00:05:02it wouldn't have been Kaylee and Maddie both.
00:05:05So I think that my mind just immediately went to, like, nope, nope, nope.
00:05:10The most important thing to me was, who did this, why did they do it?
00:05:15This is Moscow.
00:05:16It doesn't take very long before state police, then the FBI, all join the search for this killer.
00:05:26We realized that there was a security camera right next door to our residence.
00:05:32Once we had that, we quickly realized that we had this white vehicle.
00:05:37And so, that was, that was the introduction of the white Elantra for us.
00:05:45We don't know when this person's going to strike again, if they're going to strike again.
00:05:52And the pressure on us to solve, alone, our own internal pressure, was huge.
00:05:59And at the same time, you've got the public pressure to find the perpetrator.
00:06:03There's a crush of media.
00:06:06It overwhelms the tiny town of Moscow, along with the lives of everyone touched by these shocking murders.
00:06:13There were, you know, YouTubers and TikTokers outside the house, you know, that want to live stream at our front door.
00:06:21And then someone comes up, like, oh, hey, yeah, what do you have to say?
00:06:24What do you have to say?
00:06:25Like, dude, like, get out of our face.
00:06:27It just went absolutely insane, but that's how the world is now, so.
00:06:30Just trying to get through the days, is really all I was doing.
00:06:33You don't feel safe in any situation like that for months.
00:06:37Like, there's no feeling secure or safe.
00:06:40I mean, after the first couple of weeks, we're like, this guy's going to get away with this.
00:06:44But then, nearly seven weeks after the murders, finally, an arrest.
00:06:49And we want to get right to our breaking news.
00:06:51A specialized team of state troopers and federal agents taking Brian Koberger into custody early Friday morning.
00:06:58My mom just came into my room, and she's like, hey, hey, they got him.
00:07:03They got him.
00:07:03I mean, my first thought was, who is that?
00:07:06I have no clue who you are.
00:07:07It was really shocking to learn he was a WSU student who had moved out to Washington and Pullman that summer to study at Washington State University.
00:07:17He was pursuing a Ph.D. in criminology and justice.
00:07:21For the first time, you'll see some of the hundreds of photos released by authorities just this week.
00:07:27They offer a glimpse into the secret life of Brian Koberger, and you'll hear what investigators learned from analyzing his digital life.
00:07:35He was a loner, no friends, no one really except for his parents.
00:07:40He called them mother and father, even through text message.
00:07:43He didn't take a selfie to send it to someone else.
00:07:45It was very vain.
00:07:46It was very much just him recording himself for that purpose only.
00:07:49But first, tonight, we want you to get to know Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna, and Ethan, who they were, how they lived their lives.
00:08:00And you'll hear how investigators say Koberger planned meticulously to end it all.
00:08:07Dylan had opened her door, and as she looked out, saw an individual in all dark clothing.
00:08:13Then she thought she heard a male voice say, I'm here to help you.
00:08:18And the crucial mistake he made that led authorities right to his doorstep.
00:08:23Boom, and now we have something in this house from the children.
00:08:27That was definitely the first aha moment.
00:08:30Greek life at U of I is pretty tight-knit.
00:08:49We all do things together.
00:08:51The sorority and fraternities were their own little community.
00:08:55When I joined Pi-Fi, I met Zanna, and I just felt welcomed in.
00:09:02You know how you meet some people, and they're like, don't want to talk to you?
00:09:05She would talk your ear off.
00:09:07We had an entire friend group that we were always together.
00:09:10Zanna, Maddie, Emily.
00:09:13We were attached to the hip probably the first day that we met.
00:09:16We just clicked immediately.
00:09:19And I was like, oh yeah, these are my people.
00:09:21These are going to be my people.
00:09:23Hi, my name is Zanna Kurnodal.
00:09:26I'm a marketing major here at the University of Idaho.
00:09:3020-year-old Zanna Kurnodal loved the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:09:34She loved her friends.
00:09:36And she highlights both in this video that's posted on her sister's social media.
00:09:41And I really like just hanging out with my friends all the time
00:09:45and being super involved in school events.
00:09:49Zanna also really loved electronic dance music.
00:09:54We called her DJ Zan because she was always like, oh, I'm going to play music while we get ready.
00:09:58Like I have a video where she's jumping on the couch and the MacBook's jumping with her.
00:10:04Oh, okay, your laptop.
00:10:06I've never met someone like Zanna before.
00:10:12Ever.
00:10:14There was one night.
00:10:15It had snowed.
00:10:16And we see a sled.
00:10:19And we just went flying.
00:10:22Ha!
00:10:23Ha!
00:10:23Ha!
00:10:23Ha!
00:10:24Her smile was contagious.
00:10:27I don't know that I ever saw Zanna not happy.
00:10:30Cracking jokes, nonstop.
00:10:33If you ever had a bad day, maybe, you know, had a rough day, she'll make you happy.
00:10:36Like somehow she'll make you laugh.
00:10:38There'd be mornings I'd wake up and I would pull out of the oven a burnt pizza
00:10:43because she tried to make pizza the night before and fell asleep.
00:10:46Zanna, did you try to make pizza last night?
00:10:48And she'd be like, I guess so.
00:10:50In August of 2022, Zanna moves into 1122 King Road with several friends.
00:10:58That includes Maddie Mogan.
00:11:00And together, the two girls work as servers at the Moscow restaurant Mad Greek.
00:11:07Also spending a lot of time at their house was Zanna's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin.
00:11:12He's a triplet, starting his second year at the University of Idaho with his sister Maisie and brother Hunter.
00:11:18The Chapin family invited me to their Idaho home.
00:11:23They opened up their photo albums, sharing memories of the son and brother they lost.
00:11:29Was it always just assumed that the three of you would go to the same college?
00:11:35Um, yeah, pretty much.
00:11:37It would have been tough to split us up, I feel like.
00:11:46We've kind of done everything together.
00:11:47Why not do college together?
00:11:50And me and Ethan joined the same fraternity, Sigma Chi.
00:11:53I just kind of followed whatever he did.
00:11:55I knew wherever we went, we were going to have a good time no matter what.
00:12:00I mean, he was kind of the dominant triplet, I would say.
00:12:03He just, he just always had these two in tow.
00:12:07The boys were always together.
00:12:10And we met them and they were immediately funny, like great guys.
00:12:13And we were like, oh, you guys are being our friends.
00:12:16Alrighty, my name is Ethan Chapin.
00:12:19I grew up playing basketball and a lot of sports.
00:12:21We were a pretty athletic family, so a lot of sports, just kind of staying active.
00:12:28And, yeah, no questions, just ready to get going.
00:12:31We played every sport together, every time we went in the car it was together,
00:12:39partied together, just everything we did.
00:12:43There was never a dull moment.
00:12:45It always made things interesting and exciting.
00:12:48Whenever there would be a party, we'd be singing country songs.
00:12:52Fall in Love by Bailey Zimmerman.
00:12:54That was one of the first songs that Ethan and I had memorized together.
00:12:57I appreciate Ethan just for being just a goofball.
00:13:09You know, I mean, he was just funny as all hell.
00:13:12We knew Ethan and Zanna liked each other.
00:13:15Me and Emily were like, they're going to be together.
00:13:18I know they like each other.
00:13:20And Zanna was like, no, no, no.
00:13:23And then Zanna ended up being like, oh, he's cute.
00:13:27Tell me a little bit about watching Ethan and Zanna.
00:13:32They were both such similar people.
00:13:34Like, they were both very outgoing and, I don't know, just fun to be around.
00:13:40Anytime they walked in a room, it was just kind of like, everyone would be like, oh, Ethan and Zanna.
00:13:44So it was kind of cool just to see them hang around.
00:13:46They always just kind of brought that same energy anywhere they went.
00:13:48It was an energy they also brought into singing a Luke Combs song.
00:13:54Beautiful, crazy.
00:13:58Or camping with their friends and spending time with Ethan's family.
00:14:02I liked her from the beginning.
00:14:06I remember one time you told Ethan that you could see him with her or something.
00:14:11Do you remember that?
00:14:12Yeah.
00:14:13I think that clicked for him.
00:14:16It's like my mom likes her.
00:14:17After visiting the triplets in early November, Stacy posts on Instagram, it's November 6th, she writes, best day.
00:14:27And they leave, feeling like the kids are starting to find their footing as young adults.
00:14:33It was just an amazing weekend.
00:14:35We had lunch with Zanna on Friday.
00:14:38We ate at Mad Greek.
00:14:39Going to the football games and just hanging out with all those kids.
00:14:43You know, it was fun.
00:14:44And we drove away that weekend.
00:14:48We just were like, we've done it.
00:14:51We have three independent, self-sufficient kids.
00:14:57It was an amazing weekend.
00:14:58It was just an amazing weekend.
00:15:03It's just after that weekend on November 7th that according to a post on her sister's Instagram,
00:15:09Zanna turns in this English essay, and it talks about having just seen a show with a bunch of her closest friends.
00:15:16And she wrote, it was amazing getting to experience one of my favorite songs with some of my best friends.
00:15:25That is one of the most important things you can do in life.
00:15:29Enjoy the ride, not the destination.
00:15:31She really liked living in the moment.
00:15:35She always wanted to be doing something.
00:15:38And as Zanna and her friends are savoring that college life, a student just across the state line is having a very different experience.
00:15:48Koberger started to get a really bad reputation on campus.
00:15:53He was starting to really lose control of his life.
00:15:57What do we know now about the criminology student whose work went beyond the classroom?
00:16:03His eyes really opened up when he's talking about Jeffrey Dahmer or BTK or Ted Bundy.
00:16:09He was starting to really lose control of his life.
00:16:39He was starting to really lose control of his life.
00:16:502,500 miles away from Moscow, Idaho, are the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania.
00:16:59This is a rural community in Pennsylvania.
00:17:01It's really a lot of skiing and resort-type communities.
00:17:05There's approximately 160,000 people living here,
00:17:09So it's a really back country sort of place in Pennsylvania.
00:17:12It's also where a young Brian Koberger grew up.
00:17:16He lived in this Monroe County home with his father, Michael, a maintenance worker,
00:17:20his mother, Mary Ann, who worked in education, and his two older sisters.
00:17:27What kind of household was Brian Koberger raised in?
00:17:31I would call his household an everyday common household.
00:17:35His parents were extremely involved in his life.
00:17:39I think even over the course of the last three years, he spoke daily with them.
00:17:43Tell me about education for Brian.
00:17:46Brian went to Pleasant Valley School District.
00:17:48It's on the west end of the Poconos.
00:17:51He attended middle school there.
00:17:55He then moved on to the senior high school.
00:17:58What kind of student was he?
00:18:01I'd say based upon what I've learned about the case,
00:18:03Brian was an average student in middle school,
00:18:06and I think he advanced while he got into high school.
00:18:13On the surface, Brian appeared to have a pretty ordinary childhood.
00:18:17But when you talk to people who knew him,
00:18:20this quiet young man seemed to be struggling socially.
00:18:24Brian was an overweight kid growing up.
00:18:26It's come to light that some people that were on the same bus as him
00:18:31said that people would throw stuff at him because of his weight.
00:18:36They would make fun of him.
00:18:38We had issues being picked on when he was overweight,
00:18:41and as it progressed in the high school,
00:18:42he got isolated from his friends that he had at that time.
00:18:45Every information we had was socially awkward,
00:18:51very few relationships,
00:18:54you know, as far as never really had what I would consider to be a girlfriend.
00:19:01I will say, though, that he was kind of skittish in a way.
00:19:05Like, he didn't really want to talk to people.
00:19:06Not very social.
00:19:07A lot of things changed in his life.
00:19:12He had gone through a transformation.
00:19:14And are you talking about a physical transformation?
00:19:16Both physically, mentally, and I think just generally in life.
00:19:20He was overweight, and he had lost a considerable amount of weight
00:19:24heading into maybe his ninth grade or tenth grade year.
00:19:27When he started losing the weight and trimming down,
00:19:30he liked to do boxing, or he worked out at the local gym.
00:19:34We had a trainer that he grew very fond of.
00:19:38And was that important in his life?
00:19:40Based upon everything that I've learned, it was very important.
00:19:42It kept him losing the weight, steaming forward, better improving his life.
00:19:51But that newer, thinner, more athletic version, Brian 2.0, if you will,
00:19:57also masked a deeper, much more troubling turn in his life.
00:20:01We know from our investigation into him, and we had looked at his past,
00:20:05and we know that he had some struggles with drug use earlier in his life.
00:20:11We find a history of an arrest in 2014.
00:20:15So of that history of arrest, we can get police reports.
00:20:19And part of the thing that came out of the police report said
00:20:21that there was a heroin addiction at the time.
00:20:24According to police reports that were reviewed by ABC News,
00:20:31in February of 2014, Brian Koberger had recently exited a rehab center
00:20:36and rejoined his family.
00:20:39And while he's home from rehab, Brian took his sister's iPhone.
00:20:44He called me, come pick him up, and he wanted to sell a phone.
00:20:46In July of 2023, I spoke with a former classmate of Koberger's,
00:20:51and he says he was unwittingly roped in to help Koberger.
00:20:57At his request, we're only using his first name.
00:21:02So you're saying that you were leaving a party, and he called you?
00:21:07Yeah, he called me to come pick him up
00:21:09and to go, like, sell a phone somewhere, and I was just like, okay.
00:21:13There's documents that ABC, myself included, have seen
00:21:17that show he stole his sister's phone.
00:21:21Oh, I didn't even know all that.
00:21:23So you thought he was trying to sell his own phone?
00:21:25Yeah.
00:21:26And at this time, did you know he had just gotten out of rehab?
00:21:29That I did not know either.
00:21:30Why do you think he was trying to sell that phone?
00:21:33Oh, we were trying to get something with it.
00:21:36That was a goal, for sure.
00:21:39His father turned him in because at that point,
00:21:41they were kind of at their wit's end
00:21:43for dealing with the substance abuse addiction.
00:21:46Those same police reports, again reviewed by ABC News,
00:21:49confirm that Koberger was charged with misdemeanor theft,
00:21:53but local officials told us that he didn't serve any jail time.
00:21:57And what about the family dynamics at that time?
00:21:59I think the family supported him throughout the entire process.
00:22:03His family would say that they believed him to be sober
00:22:08ever since high school.
00:22:11Obviously, that evolution led to him getting higher education,
00:22:15doing better in schooling,
00:22:17focused more on something that he really wanted to do,
00:22:19which was criminology.
00:22:20When he graduated high school,
00:22:25I think he actually got a security job
00:22:27right out of high school,
00:22:29working for Pleasant Valley School District.
00:22:33He then transitioned after a year or two,
00:22:35and he did attend Northampton County Community College,
00:22:38where his interest in criminology grew.
00:22:40So he goes to Northampton Community College,
00:22:42and then from there goes to DeSales.
00:22:45He goes to DeSales University to finish his degree,
00:22:48which this is an individual that appeared to be highly intelligent
00:22:51and turned his life around.
00:22:54According to a pretrial motion that was submitted by defense attorneys,
00:22:58the doctors had recently diagnosed Koberger
00:23:00as being on the autism spectrum along with OCD.
00:23:03And in the filing, they also state Mr. Koberger
00:23:06has met the criteria for this diagnosis since childhood.
00:23:11Brian's defense team said that he suffered
00:23:14from autism spectrum disorder.
00:23:18Is that something the family thought he also suffered from?
00:23:21I don't know if the family thought that he suffered from a disorder.
00:23:26So what provokes a person who appears to have overcome
00:23:30a difficult adolescence
00:23:31to then murder four people?
00:23:34And how did his life take a turn
00:23:36when Koberger left Pennsylvania
00:23:38to pursue his Ph.D. at Washington State University?
00:23:43Professors said, if we give him a Ph.D.,
00:23:46we're going to end up seeing on the news
00:23:47that he's committing some kind of crime.
00:23:50We all probably wish we had a friend like Maddie and Kaylee
00:24:06were to each other.
00:24:08In August of 2022, five young women,
00:24:12including Kaylee Gonsalves and Madison Mogan,
00:24:14all move into a house together.
00:24:16It's just off campus, right here on King Road.
00:24:21Kaylee and Maddie met in sixth grade,
00:24:24and they were always at each other's house
00:24:27or at Kaylee's sister's house.
00:24:30They were more than best friends.
00:24:31They were even more than sisters.
00:24:32They were absolutely each other's everything
00:24:36through thick and thin.
00:24:38So that's Maddie at Christmas
00:24:41when she was just little.
00:24:42She looked so excited.
00:24:45Maddie, Maddie Mae, we called her.
00:24:48She was our first and only child that we ever had,
00:24:52and she was such a happy baby,
00:24:55just super easy and fun and smart,
00:24:58and it was just the joy of all of our lives.
00:25:02Maddie's dad, Ben, and her mom, Karen,
00:25:05divorced when Maddie was really little.
00:25:07Karen then married Scott Laramie,
00:25:09who raised and loved Maddie as his own,
00:25:12and together they appear in the Prime Video decuseries
00:25:15One Night in Idaho, The College Murders.
00:25:19Maddie was Karen's mini-me.
00:25:22They looked alike, and they acted alike and everything.
00:25:26For a long time, she just called me Scotty, you know,
00:25:29and then when she got older,
00:25:32it just made me feel so proud to be called Dad.
00:25:37I was a very young mother.
00:25:38I was 22.
00:25:41So I was always so protective of Madison,
00:25:44this beautiful, peaceful little girl.
00:25:47I never let Maddie cry.
00:25:52Like, never.
00:25:59Kaylee is the daughter of Steve and Christy Gonsalves.
00:26:03She's the middle child of five kids,
00:26:06including her older sister, Olivia,
00:26:08and they grew up together near Coeur d'Alene.
00:26:11I remember the day Kaylee was born.
00:26:14I was about four and a half years older than Kaylee.
00:26:19And you're a big sister,
00:26:21but you also ended up being best friends.
00:26:24What was it like to watch her evolve and become a young woman?
00:26:29It was the best.
00:26:31From the moment Kaylee was born,
00:26:34she was ornery, stubborn, a spitfire,
00:26:38so confident, so sure of herself.
00:26:41There was no timid bone in her body.
00:26:45Kaylee was the middle child,
00:26:46and she's your classic middle child syndrome.
00:26:49She tried to be really sweet at first.
00:26:51And when she knew you liked her,
00:26:52then she could be a little bit more herself,
00:26:55which was a little ornery and do a prank on you.
00:26:57Kaylee was funny.
00:26:59Kaylee is this bubbly, smiley girl.
00:27:03And Maddie's always been described as just a little bit quieter.
00:27:06Yeah.
00:27:06How did they click?
00:27:09I think that something in Kaylee's soul
00:27:11recognized something in Maddie's and vice versa,
00:27:14and it was never a question.
00:27:17Because as quiet as Maddie maybe was when they first met,
00:27:23man, man, she blossomed.
00:27:25And as sharp and bullheaded as Kaylee was,
00:27:30man, she softened.
00:27:31And they complemented each other.
00:27:39You wouldn't see Kaylee without Madison.
00:27:42You wouldn't see Madison without Kaylee.
00:27:44My name is Donna Staub.
00:27:46I'm an English teacher at Lake City High School.
00:27:49And I had Kaylee and Madison in an English class
00:27:54when they were juniors in 2017.
00:27:59So it was probably my second class of the day,
00:28:03if I remember correctly.
00:28:04And these two girls walked in just talking and laughing,
00:28:08life of the party.
00:28:09Her mom made it a point, too, that she was like,
00:28:12I just want her to have one friend that she can depend on.
00:28:15I don't care about her being super popular.
00:28:18She's just, I just, if this could be the friend,
00:28:21and it just worked out that way.
00:28:24So then when college comes,
00:28:25they were like, we're going to go to college together.
00:28:27During high school, they mentioned it early on,
00:28:30they were going to go off to college together.
00:28:32That was their plan.
00:28:34Living near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho,
00:28:35they were just about 85 miles or so
00:28:37from the University of Idaho campus.
00:28:42It's not until 2022 that Kaylee and Maddie live together.
00:28:46They move into that house on King Road with their friends.
00:28:50Kaylee and Maddie were always at each other's houses,
00:28:53but this was the first time they'd really gotten to live together
00:28:56and be roommates for real.
00:28:58That was definitely just a house where we all got to hang out
00:29:01and feel welcome.
00:29:02And, you know, we would have parties.
00:29:04Everyone who lived there just liked to have a good time,
00:29:06and so they'd always invite people over.
00:29:08That usually turned into some sort of social gathering,
00:29:11maybe a party.
00:29:12But, I mean, it was always people that everyone knew,
00:29:16so everyone could just go there and feel safe.
00:29:20We were college kids.
00:29:22You're still innocent.
00:29:23You're like, nah, nothing's going to happen.
00:29:25By their senior year,
00:29:31Maddie and Kaylee were looking forward to graduation,
00:29:34starting their next chapter.
00:29:37In mid-November in Moscow,
00:29:39it starts to get really cold.
00:29:40It's getting dark earlier.
00:29:42There's a chill in the air.
00:29:43And soon, the lives of everyone in that house
00:29:50would be forever linked by tragedy,
00:29:53a tragedy no one could have ever imagined.
00:29:56Once the cops showed up and the ambulance arrived,
00:29:59we all were,
00:30:01where's Kaylee and Maddie?
00:30:02Where's Kaylee and Maddie?
00:30:03We were calling them.
00:30:03We were texting them.
00:30:04We were, you know, no answers.
00:30:07We were, you know, we were, you know,
00:30:37in May of 2022,
00:30:4027-year-old Brian Koberger graduates from DeSales University.
00:30:44He's seen in this commencement video
00:30:46getting a master's degree in criminal justice.
00:30:50My name is Josh Ferraro.
00:30:51I knew Brian Koberger from our time at DeSales University.
00:30:55We were paired up for this long project.
00:30:57We were all picking partners,
00:30:58and he was someone who was still there.
00:31:00So I said, hey, do you want to be my partner?
00:31:02And yeah, that's how we met.
00:31:05He's like, yeah, you know,
00:31:05my mission is to, like, be a cop.
00:31:07It's something I want to do.
00:31:08But he didn't delve too much into his personal life.
00:31:12This guy's a lonely guy, keeping him himself.
00:31:15I invited him to one of my parties one time,
00:31:16and he's like, no, I'm good, man.
00:31:17I'm like, all right.
00:31:18The offer is there, but no problem.
00:31:20Like, it's just trying to be nice.
00:31:23One of the classes the two men share as undergrads
00:31:26is psychological sleuthing,
00:31:28and it's taught by the renowned professor
00:31:31of forensic psychology, Dr. Catherine Ramsland.
00:31:34My area of expertise is extreme offenders,
00:31:38serial killers, mass murderers,
00:31:39but primarily serial killers.
00:31:412020 spoke with Dr. Ramsland back in 2019
00:31:44about her work studying the serial killer known as BTK.
00:31:49I think BTK is a very useful example
00:31:52of somebody who can grow up
00:31:54in a fairly normal childhood
00:31:56and become a serial killer.
00:31:59In that class, you study mass murders,
00:32:01you study serial killers,
00:32:02and she really delves into the psyche of their mind.
00:32:05Brian Koberger was really, really invested in the class.
00:32:10He took really quick notes,
00:32:11and he'd ask a lot of questions.
00:32:13His eyes really opened up
00:32:14when he's asking a question
00:32:15or getting to the answer
00:32:17and talking about Jeffrey Dahmer or BTK
00:32:20or Ted Bundy.
00:32:21He was very proud of his intellect.
00:32:25While at DeSales,
00:32:26Koberger conducts a Reddit survey
00:32:28for an academic research project
00:32:29looking to understand the mind of a criminal.
00:32:33He put an online request
00:32:35to speak to convicted criminals
00:32:38to discuss the emotions they were feeling
00:32:43and decision-making that they went through
00:32:45when they were committing crimes.
00:32:48How did they choose their victims?
00:32:50All this stuff.
00:32:51In June of 2022,
00:32:55Koberger moves across the country
00:32:56to Pullman, Washington,
00:32:58pursuing a PhD in criminology
00:33:00at Washington State University.
00:33:02The University of Idaho
00:33:04and Washington State University
00:33:05are located just seven miles from each other.
00:33:09The student body
00:33:09are constantly traversing
00:33:11to come over to the different areas,
00:33:13whether it be for classes or social.
00:33:15There is definitely a crossover
00:33:16with the two universities.
00:33:18We're all one big community.
00:33:20At 27 years old,
00:33:25Koberger has never lived on his own before,
00:33:27and he moves across the country
00:33:29and lives here in this off-campus apartment complex.
00:33:32He spends the summer exploring the region,
00:33:35taking some of those selfies
00:33:37just released by authorities.
00:33:39and making several trips
00:33:41across the state line into Moscow.
00:33:44His cell phone records would later show
00:33:46that his phone pinged off a tower
00:33:48in that area 23 times
00:33:50in the months before the murders.
00:33:52He even gets pulled over one night in August.
00:33:56Hey there.
00:33:57I stopped you going a little fast.
00:33:59He's accused of speeding
00:34:00on the Pullman-Moscow highway.
00:34:02Were you wearing your seatbelt
00:34:04when I stopped you?
00:34:05No.
00:34:06No?
00:34:08That's no good.
00:34:09I'm just being honest with you.
00:34:13Yeah, I appreciate that.
00:34:15You guys are...
00:34:16There's absolutely no point
00:34:19in not being honest.
00:34:21After the officer tells Koberger
00:34:23he's getting a $10 seatbelt citation,
00:34:26Koberger has some questions for the officer.
00:34:28I'm obviously an honest person, right?
00:34:30I told you I wasn't wearing my seatbelt.
00:34:32Uh-huh.
00:34:32But people lie to you about that.
00:34:34They say I lied to you about that, right?
00:34:36Mm-hmm.
00:34:36My own knowledge.
00:34:38Mm-hmm.
00:34:38I honestly go back and get that.
00:34:41Koberger accepting the citation.
00:34:43All right.
00:34:44Have a good night.
00:34:47Tell me what the internship was
00:34:49that Brian Koberger applied for.
00:34:52So it was actually part of WSU's
00:34:54criminal justice PhD program
00:34:55where the student would be
00:34:58embedded in the police department
00:35:00to conduct research.
00:35:02How would you describe
00:35:03how he communicated with you?
00:35:05Just awkward.
00:35:06Just a little bit socially inept, perhaps.
00:35:09I didn't feel he could develop rapport
00:35:11and trust with my staff.
00:35:13Didn't really speak
00:35:14in a fluid, conversational manner.
00:35:17And so for those reasons,
00:35:18I didn't think he'd be a good fit for us.
00:35:20But Koberger does get a position
00:35:22as a teaching assistant at the university,
00:35:25which helps pay for his tuition.
00:35:26He was the TA for my criminal justice 420 class,
00:35:31which was criminal procedures.
00:35:33He was a little bit more strict with his grading.
00:35:36He gave several comments of feedback,
00:35:39you know, like saying,
00:35:39oh, well, this is a little bit too broad.
00:35:41This is not descriptive enough.
00:35:43Stuff like that.
00:35:43Brian Koberger was pretty quiet.
00:35:46He didn't really talk too much.
00:35:47He kind of didn't really look at us directly.
00:35:49And he just seemed really kind of awkward.
00:35:53And outside of class,
00:35:55Koberger doesn't appear to be very social.
00:35:57He was a loner.
00:35:59Jared and Heather Barnhart
00:36:00analyzed Koberger's digital life,
00:36:03including his cell phone
00:36:04and computer records for investigators.
00:36:07He had 18 total contacts in his phone.
00:36:10One person was labeled as maintenance
00:36:12and another was AT&T.
00:36:14There were no texts to friends.
00:36:16It was just his parents.
00:36:18He called them mother and father,
00:36:20even through text message.
00:36:22He would say,
00:36:23mother, where is father?
00:36:25Why isn't father answering me?
00:36:27And she would respond,
00:36:29your dad is in the garage, Brian.
00:36:31He's working.
00:36:32It was all mother and father,
00:36:33hours of talking, text messaging.
00:36:35And we found all those selfies.
00:36:40Like very much staged selfies,
00:36:42trying to catch himself in a certain manner.
00:36:46It's not weird that he was taking selfies.
00:36:48The weird part is that
00:36:49he never did something with it.
00:36:51He didn't take a selfie
00:36:52to send it to someone else.
00:36:54As the semester progresses,
00:36:56instructors at WSU start to raise concerns
00:36:59about Koberger's conduct in the program.
00:37:01Koberger started to get
00:37:03a really bad reputation on campus.
00:37:06Sometime in November,
00:37:07I remember the professor saying,
00:37:09hi, so I'm switching some of my TAs.
00:37:13He didn't get any more in-depth.
00:37:15He didn't seem to respect female professors
00:37:17with showing up late to class,
00:37:19having some weird social problems
00:37:22where like he would block doorways
00:37:24when students were trying to talk to him.
00:37:26They felt uncomfortable around him.
00:37:28They felt that he would try to,
00:37:30at times, trap them.
00:37:32And there were lots of allegations
00:37:33that he was bothering girls.
00:37:34And this is especially problematic
00:37:36when there's a power dynamic.
00:37:38There was a common complaint
00:37:39of he's very controlling,
00:37:41that he's manipulative,
00:37:43that he treated women a certain way
00:37:45compared to men.
00:37:47Disrespect just had an odd, strange behavior.
00:37:50The university was on to him.
00:37:53The professor said,
00:37:53we need to cut funding from this guy.
00:37:56If we give him a PhD,
00:37:57he's going to become a professor,
00:37:59and we're going to end up seeing on the news
00:38:00that he's stalking women,
00:38:02or he's committing some kind of crime.
00:38:05He received an email describing
00:38:07that he was on a performance improvement plan
00:38:09with the university in this role.
00:38:10It was somewhat satisfactory,
00:38:12but there were some problems.
00:38:13WSU did not intend to have him back
00:38:16as a teaching assistant.
00:38:18He was starting to really lose control of his life,
00:38:21kind of spinning out.
00:38:23Away from home, isolated.
00:38:25Koberger is about to turn his PhD work into reality.
00:38:30He goes from a student to a killer.
00:38:33Is it somebody that trains and practices
00:38:35over and over and over and over again,
00:38:37and then at some point,
00:38:38do they feel like they have to execute?
00:38:41Like a sick way of carrying out his thesis.
00:38:46Right.
00:38:56Where's she at?
00:38:57Where's she at?
00:38:59We're at 34.
00:39:01Hunter Johnson came up to me,
00:39:03and I was like, where's Ethan and Xana?
00:39:04And he's like, they're not here anymore.
00:39:07I was like, what do you mean they're not here anymore?
00:39:08He's like, I think they were murdered last night.
00:39:13He was like, yeah, all four.
00:39:17We were like, what?
00:39:19It doesn't make no sense.
00:39:21Now to the murders of those four college students
00:39:23from the University of Idaho.
00:39:24And now, what happened minute by minute?
00:39:27You go into Xana's room.
00:39:30What did you see?
00:39:31Stabbing is close, personal, long-term.
00:39:36You've got to be committed.
00:39:39The number of times that Kaylee was stabbed,
00:39:42there's no sugarcoating it.
00:39:43The first person to find them.
00:39:45As soon as you get there, you know something's wrong.
00:39:49And a survivor who saw the killer in the house.
00:39:53The third time she opens her door, she sees a male figure.
00:39:57I just shut the door and walked in, said he knows what to do.
00:40:01Now, just released inside his home and his mind.
00:40:06He was on a website called Serial Killer Timelines.
00:40:10And he just went down this list and clicked one after another, after another.
00:40:14And the police body camera from the crime scene.
00:40:17I think we have a homicide.
00:40:18Secure the outside first.
00:40:19He made an absolutely critical mistake.
00:40:23What was the target?
00:40:24Just over the hill is the University of Idaho campus.
00:40:44This is Greek Row, the Sigma Chi house right there.
00:40:48And as you cross the street, you enter that off-campus housing.
00:40:51And this area in particular is really popular.
00:40:53Students sort of passed down the houses from generation to generation.
00:40:57And in August of 2022, this is where five young girls moved in together.
00:41:02They're full of optimism, excited about life.
00:41:06And they're posting videos showing all of it online.
00:41:09And I wake up and now.
00:41:10Don't see your name on my phone.
00:41:13It's the moment when I think that I'm better at home.
00:41:17We just called it the older girls' house.
00:41:20Maddie stayed there, and then Kaylee moved there.
00:41:24And then Zanna moved there.
00:41:25And then Bethany Dillon moved there.
00:41:28And the sixth housemate was Kaylee's golden doodle.
00:41:32His name was Murphy.
00:41:33She was really excited to have the house dog, is what she called it.
00:41:38Everything I like to do with my dog.
00:41:40The King Road house was a three-story white house, right in the middle of Party Central.
00:41:49The house is three levels.
00:41:50It has six bedrooms, two on each floor.
00:41:54Bethany's bedroom is on the first floor.
00:41:57Zanna and Dillon's bedrooms are on the second floor, along with the kitchen and the sliding glass door leading out to the porch.
00:42:06Kaylee and Madison's bedrooms are on the third floor.
00:42:11And Ethan was over at the King Road house a lot.
00:42:14It was always friends of Ethan that would go over, friends of Zanna, friends of Kaylee and Maddie.
00:42:21There was never anybody who shouldn't have been there.
00:42:25People didn't really have any interest in going into houses where they didn't know anybody.
00:42:28It was a party neighborhood.
00:42:32Just in the sense that, like, you walked over to that area on Friday and Saturday nights, listening for where people might be at.
00:42:39And then you see someone you know, you wander over.
00:42:41It's Saturday, November 12th.
00:42:50It's the last home game for the University of Idaho Vandals.
00:42:53Celebration is in the air.
00:42:54Students start tailgating early.
00:42:56We had a lot of pregames before the football games.
00:43:00If the game was early, we would try and wake up early.
00:43:05Zanna would usually be FaceTiming me, trying to wake me up, be like, hurry up, like, let's go.
00:43:09I had gotten texts from Ethan being like, why aren't you here yet?
00:43:12So I was like, okay, I won't keep you waiting any longer.
00:43:16The house on King, it was the cutest place to take pictures.
00:43:20Like, you could go on the third floor patio.
00:43:23That patio was the scene of so many happy moments.
00:43:28Maddie's mom, Karen Laramie, shared those moments in the Prime Video docuseries, One Night in Idaho, The College Murders.
00:43:36Kaylee texted me with the picture of Maddie on her shoulders.
00:43:41Just loving this amazing, happy moment.
00:43:45I called Maddie, and she put me on FaceTime.
00:43:48And then I was having a conversation with all of them.
00:43:52Kaylee Gonzalez posted this last photo to Instagram, writing,
00:43:56One lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day.
00:44:02We were with our whole friend group, which was a normal weekend for us.
00:44:06We were just hanging out with our friends.
00:44:08And then from there, we all kind of split off.
00:44:11And we were like, bye, I love you.
00:44:13Gave each other a hug.
00:44:15The triplets, they went to Maisie's formal.
00:44:17I think Xana just waited for Ethan, probably.
00:44:20Ethan spent the beginning part of that night at the Betty's Ball with his sister.
00:44:25From there, he left with me back to Sigma Chi.
00:44:28The party continued after the formal.
00:44:32And Ethan really wanted you to come party.
00:44:35So he started off by texting me.
00:44:36I think he said, dog, come hang out.
00:44:39We all want you here.
00:44:40And it was like spam texting me.
00:44:42And I said, I'm going to bed, I think.
00:44:44It was like nine.
00:44:45Or I'm not going to go.
00:44:47And then he said, love you.
00:44:49And I didn't even respond to that.
00:44:51I think I was asleep by then.
00:44:53And the I love you kind of stood out, though.
00:44:57Well, yeah.
00:44:57Yeah, definitely.
00:44:59Because you didn't just normally text that to each other.
00:45:03Yeah.
00:45:03Yeah.
00:45:07After the game, Kaylee and Maddie head down to the corner club.
00:45:12It's a big hangout for college students.
00:45:15They're having some drinks, hanging out with friends.
00:45:17And then they decide they need a snack, so they head downtown.
00:45:21And they order mac and cheese from the grub truck.
00:45:28We live in this world right now where there are cameras everywhere.
00:45:31So we know that Kaylee and Maddie were at the food truck around 1.30 in the morning.
00:45:37Maddie was running around in that huge jacket, hugging people.
00:45:41Kaylee was just on her phone, just laughing at Maddie.
00:45:44And she was just smiling, and she was, they were happy.
00:45:48They were so happy.
00:45:51Maddie and Kaylee get a ride back to the King Road house using a rideshare.
00:45:55And by 2 a.m., everyone's home.
00:45:58They're settling in for the night.
00:46:00It's like a sleepover.
00:46:01Kaylee sleeps in Maddie's bed, just like they've done since they were kids.
00:46:06But Zanna stays up.
00:46:09Zanna orders DoorDash, and it gets delivered to the King Road house a little after 4 a.m.
00:46:15She takes it up to the kitchen, puts some of her food onto a plate, and she's eating that in her bedroom.
00:46:22She's on social media, the latest of 4.12, and just shortly after that.
00:46:26Everything seemed so normal in that home on King Road.
00:46:32But by the next morning, nothing would ever be the same.
00:46:38Emily got a call from Dylan around 11-ish.
00:46:43That's when I felt like I needed to go over.
00:46:47And then what happened next?
00:46:49I went into the house.
00:46:50We were in complete panic.
00:47:02It's, this is, this is real.
00:47:05By 2 a.m., all the roommates are back home and settling in for the night.
00:47:22Police say around 3 a.m., shortly after leaving his apartment and heading towards Moscow,
00:47:27Brian Koberger turns his cell phone off.
00:47:30We can see Koberger's car on footage captured by a surveillance camera that was at the neighbor's house.
00:47:41He keeps circling the area.
00:47:43He's making multiple passes at the house.
00:47:50We believe that Brian Koberger entered the house sometime shortly after his last scene on the video.
00:47:57Somewhere probably around 4.10 a.m.
00:48:00Police say Koberger entered through a sliding glass door in the back of the house.
00:48:05Investigators believe Zanna was in her room with her boyfriend, Ethan, asleep in her bed.
00:48:10Dylan's across the hall.
00:48:11Bethany downstairs.
00:48:13And on the third floor, Kaylee and Maddie had fallen asleep together in Maddie's room.
00:48:19Zanna was up.
00:48:22We see activity from her watch of just steps that were taken.
00:48:25And we know that she's eating.
00:48:27She's on social media at 4.12 and just shortly after that.
00:48:32After entering the house, investigators believe Koberger walked through the kitchen and went upstairs to the third floor,
00:48:38where he found Kaylee and Maddie together asleep.
00:48:43Kaylee and Maddie were both killed very quickly, but they were stabbed repeatedly many times.
00:48:49Stabbing is close, personal, long-term, violent action.
00:48:59You've got to be committed to do a homicide.
00:49:05What investigators think happened is that Zanna heard the commotion.
00:49:12At some point, Zanna comes, we believe, up the stairs.
00:49:17Brian Koberger either hears something or he hears the stairs.
00:49:21Something alerts him and takes him away from what he's doing in that bedroom.
00:49:26Investigators say Zanna turned and ran and that Koberger followed, chasing her downstairs to her bedroom.
00:49:37Zanna, after that initial contact in the doorway, she's fighting him.
00:49:42We know that because she has defensive wounds all over herself.
00:49:45She fought like hell.
00:49:47And we think at that point, he realizes that there's a fourth person, and that's Ethan that's in the bed.
00:49:53So he reaches over and stabs Ethan and killed Ethan instantly.
00:49:59He continues to fight with Zanna and ends up on the floor, where ultimately he does finally kill her.
00:50:05At 4.17 a.m., less than 10 minutes after investigators believe Brian Koberger entered the house,
00:50:12the neighbor's surveillance camera captures what police describe as a loud thud,
00:50:17the sound of a whimper, and a dog barking.
00:50:22That camera is just about 50 feet from Zanna's bedroom.
00:50:29In Zanna's room, some things were pushed around, were moved around,
00:50:32and I think that's something that you're probably hearing on the video.
00:50:36Because she was fighting.
00:50:37Right.
00:50:37After Koberger walks out of Zanna's room, he then comes face-to-face with another one of her roommates.
00:50:46It's Dylan.
00:50:48Dylan was awakened by just some type of noises.
00:50:52Initially, she thought it was the dog, Murphy.
00:50:57Then she thought she heard a male voice say,
00:51:00I'm here to help you.
00:51:02We believe that is Brian Koberger saying that to Zanna.
00:51:05He's doing something to try to calm her,
00:51:08to make her relax of who he is and why he's in this residence.
00:51:13Dylan, as she had overheard multiple things throughout this time period,
00:51:18she had opened her door a couple different times.
00:51:22The third time she opens her door, she sees a male figure.
00:51:26The description was a thin, tall individual wearing a mask,
00:51:31almost described as a basketball player physique, and bushy eyebrows.
00:51:36She momentarily saw him.
00:51:40And then he turned and he left the residence.
00:51:44He knows people were awake, probably believing at some point somebody called the police.
00:51:47I've got to get out of here.
00:51:51The fight with Zanna could have just wiped him.
00:51:55We'll never know what made him pass that door up and head out.
00:52:02After that, Dylan is terrified.
00:52:04She starts texting Bethany, her roommate.
00:52:06Did you hear that?
00:52:07I'm trying to call the other roommates.
00:52:09They're not answering.
00:52:10You've got somebody who had been drinking,
00:52:14was in and out of slumber,
00:52:17and somebody walks through in the middle of the night
00:52:19and still wonders in her own mind,
00:52:22did she see it or did she dream it?
00:52:26She makes a mad dash for Bethany's room
00:52:29and decides to run downstairs and spend the rest of the night with Bethany.
00:52:35As night turns into day,
00:52:38everything in Moscow is still quiet.
00:52:42But investigators say that Brian Koberger is awake.
00:52:46He's active.
00:52:47That includes spending more than an hour and a half on the phone with his mom
00:52:51and posing for a selfie, giving a thumbs up.
00:52:56Police say just after 9 a.m.,
00:52:59Koberger is on the move and he's headed back to 1122 King Road.
00:53:04He's not seen anything on the news.
00:53:06I think he certainly would expect.
00:53:08This is going to be everywhere immediately.
00:53:11So I think that his curiosity has absolutely gotten to him.
00:53:15And so he goes back to the area.
00:53:18But for all of his training,
00:53:20for all of his things that he's studied,
00:53:23crime scene and serial killers,
00:53:25PhD program for criminology,
00:53:28he made an absolutely critical mistake
00:53:31in that house that night.
00:53:36I woke up in the morning.
00:53:50It was kind of like chill Sunday.
00:53:53Emily and Hunter came and were hanging out in my bed with me.
00:53:57And then Dylan called Emily and asked us all to come over.
00:54:06I could overhear what was going on.
00:54:08She sounded freaked out.
00:54:10I just had a gut feeling.
00:54:11And something in me told me that I need to just go.
00:54:14As soon as you get there,
00:54:19you know something's wrong.
00:54:23I walked just right in the door
00:54:26and Hunter already went up.
00:54:30And then he was like,
00:54:31okay, you, everybody get out.
00:54:34Hunter finds Zanna and Ethan murdered.
00:54:37But he decides to shield his friends from that reality.
00:54:41And he tells them only that someone inside is unconscious
00:54:44and to call 911.
00:54:46911 location of your emergency.
00:54:48Hi, something is happening.
00:54:50Something happened in our house.
00:54:52We don't know what.
00:54:54Dispatching Moscow law ambulance
00:54:56for unconsciousness, 1122 King Road.
00:55:01Where's she at?
00:55:03Where's she at?
00:55:03She's got a phone call.
00:55:05Yes.
00:55:05Yes.
00:55:08Where at?
00:55:09Up here?
00:55:09Up here.
00:55:10Can I check this?
00:55:12She was breathing.
00:55:14Okay, do that.
00:55:1513, I think we have a homicide.
00:55:17I don't think any of us were prepared for
00:55:19that it's four young, completely innocent kids.
00:55:23Russell, please stop it.
00:55:25Two college-age people
00:55:27and parents both to be deceased.
00:55:30Lots of blood.
00:55:30Please stop it.
00:55:31We're at 34.
00:55:32We got another.
00:55:33We have two additional deceased on the third floor.
00:55:37Secure the outside first.
00:55:39I'll do it in the front door.
00:55:40There's a back entry.
00:55:41I was going to start taping it all off.
00:55:43Okay.
00:55:44Here.
00:55:44Can you guys go over to the dumpster for me, please?
00:55:50We were just placed on the street to sit down and wait.
00:55:55We were all cold.
00:55:57We were all scared.
00:55:58Our brains just started to continue to spiral.
00:56:01I kept calling your name and she wouldn't answer and then I saw the guy.
00:56:08Outside, police speak to Dylan.
00:56:10She's distraught.
00:56:12She's the roommate who told police she saw a masked man in the house that night.
00:56:17Describe the guy that you saw.
00:56:19He was a little bit taller than me.
00:56:21I'm almost positive.
00:56:23He was wearing a full black outfit.
00:56:26And he had this mask that was just over his forehead and over his mouth.
00:56:30And he didn't say anything to me at all.
00:56:32I just shut the door and locked it.
00:56:34I didn't know what to do.
00:56:36And I think he went out the side door, the sliding door in the kitchen that goes out to the backyard.
00:56:41We have footprints going out the back and open door.
00:56:44When we got there, that sliding glass door was left halfway open.
00:56:50You go into Xana's room.
00:56:52What did you see?
00:56:53Xana was there.
00:56:57She was laying on the floor.
00:56:59And Ethan was on the bed.
00:57:08I got woken up by my friend.
00:57:11We'd partied pretty hard the night before.
00:57:12He's like, there's a ton of cops over at Xana's house.
00:57:17I walked over there.
00:57:18I didn't see Ethan outside.
00:57:19So I figured he was inside helping whoever needed to be helped.
00:57:25Okay, do you mind hanging out here, please?
00:57:27Hunter Johnson came up to me.
00:57:29I was like, where's Ethan and Xana?
00:57:31And he's like, they're not here anymore.
00:57:33I was like, what do you mean they're not here anymore?
00:57:35He's like, I think they were murdered last night.
00:57:42And you're at the grocery store?
00:57:44I was at the grocery store.
00:57:46Mm-hmm.
00:57:46And I was talking to a friend.
00:57:49Fine.
00:57:50It's okay.
00:57:51And my phone kept ringing.
00:57:54And it was Hunter on the other end.
00:57:59And he just said he's not here.
00:58:01And he kept repeating it.
00:58:03And so I was like, well, go get him.
00:58:05Go find him.
00:58:06And he just kept saying it.
00:58:07And he goes, no, Mom, you don't understand.
00:58:09Ethan and Xana are not on this earth anymore.
00:58:11And I just was like, there's just no way.
00:58:18And I drove down the road and called Jim.
00:58:23And, you know, it makes it real when you have to repeat it.
00:58:28Right.
00:58:29It drives me crazy because I've always wanted to protect my family.
00:58:35And there's really nothing there that I could have done instantly.
00:58:39He was taken.
00:58:48We still didn't know where Kaylee and Maddie were.
00:58:52We didn't know where Murphy was.
00:58:55And then U of I sent the homicide text.
00:59:00Throughout the day, the University of Idaho sent campus-wide text messages
00:59:04with updates on the investigation about a homicide and an unknown suspect.
00:59:09But at 5.17 p.m., students get a text message that says,
00:59:14for the first time, four people had been killed.
00:59:18That was the moment that we knew where Kaylee and Maddie were.
00:59:22The two surviving roommates, Dylan and Bethany, have received a lot of criticism
00:59:34for not calling 911 immediately on the night of the murders.
00:59:38But they both told police they weren't certain that what Dylan thought she saw was real.
00:59:45I told her, Kaylee, I need to come to your room because she was the only one that was answering me.
00:59:49So I just ran down there.
00:59:50And for a second, I stopped and I saw Xana passed out.
00:59:54And I thought maybe she was just sleeping or something.
00:59:56I didn't think anything because I was so out of it.
00:59:58I just fell asleep.
00:59:59And then we woke up this morning and no one was answering.
01:00:01We understand the disbelief that she's going through.
01:00:05What 19-year-old kid is going to come up with and assume what actually happened was happening?
01:00:13Investigators now know they're a few hours behind the killer.
01:00:17But as they walk into Maddie's third-floor bedroom, police get their first big break.
01:00:23The comforter's over.
01:00:25The girls take the comforter off.
01:00:27Lo and behold, there's a knife sheath laying right there.
01:00:31They find a sheath for a K-bar-style knife.
01:00:35There's no murder weapon, but the sheath is there.
01:00:39That was definitely the first aha moment.
01:00:42We have something in this house from the killer.
01:00:53Four murdered students, a panicked campus, and now the world's eyes on Moscow, Idaho.
01:01:05Now to the murders of those four college students from the University of Idaho.
01:01:10As investigators try to figure out what happened in that house on King Road.
01:01:14We've told the public very clearly from the beginning that we believe it was a targeted attack.
01:01:20They said, oh, this was a targeted attack, nothing to worry about.
01:01:23And my first question was, but you don't have anybody.
01:01:28That means there's somebody still out there.
01:01:32How could we not worry?
01:01:37We don't want to put our investigation in jeopardy by releasing what we have.
01:01:43The investigation grew massively.
01:01:46We were trying to get every piece of video footage from that day from every surveillance camera in town
01:01:51captured from that night.
01:01:56Right across the street from Zanna's bedroom is a house.
01:01:59They have surveillance footage of a white Hyundai Elantra circling the house in the early morning hours of November 13th.
01:02:05We quickly realized that we had this white vehicle during this time, leaving at a very fast, high rate of speed.
01:02:16You can see it is burning out of that neighborhood.
01:02:19So we believe at that point, this was the vehicle of our subject.
01:02:27So we narrowed it down to a 2011 to 2016 Elantra.
01:02:31Believe it or not, when we ran Idaho registrations and just looking local, we had over 25,000.
01:02:37The search to track down that car has no limits.
01:02:40We are just wanting to talk to the individuals who are in that vehicle.
01:02:46Investigators also have a crucial piece of evidence found at the crime scene, left behind by the killer.
01:02:53A sheath for a K-Bar knife.
01:02:56This knife sheath was found under Maddie's body in the bed.
01:03:01Immediately it stood out because it was in stark contrast to the entire house.
01:03:06About four days in, the lab came back and said they had a sole source male DNA found on the button of the knife sheath.
01:03:14But there was no matches in CODIS for that DNA.
01:03:19Once we know we had the DNA from the sheath, then we flew that to Othrum.
01:03:25And then they started to develop and work their part of it.
01:03:29Othrum is a company in which we build technology to basically bring certainty to investigations.
01:03:34Forensic genetic genealogy is a tool that we use to identify someone or find a nearest relative.
01:03:45So I got a call and I was asked what is the fastest that we could produce a result.
01:03:54Kristen was adamant that we get these folks' answers.
01:03:56I can't imagine that being my child and knowing that there's someone out there that could help.
01:04:05We have to help.
01:04:06How fast can we get this DNA?
01:04:09It was a sergeant from the Moscow Police Department who got on a plane in Boise.
01:04:13And they flew directly to Texas and hand-delivered it to Othrum.
01:04:20They brought us down a tube of DNA that was remaining from that knife sheath.
01:04:27That DNA extract contained a lot of DNA.
01:04:29It was not a trace amount of DNA.
01:04:31It was 500 times more DNA than we generally see in our low-quantity DNA cases.
01:04:36The technology at Othrum is then able to build a profile that's uploaded to genealogy databases
01:04:44which search for people who are connected to that unknown DNA.
01:04:49In this particular case, there was a unique biogeographical ancestry
01:04:52that allowed us to kind of narrow the search even early on.
01:04:56And what we found is that there was a multi-generational American family based in Pennsylvania.
01:05:02Genetic relatives that were related to the person we were looking for.
01:05:06While there's a massive, multifaceted investigation working to find him,
01:05:11Ryan Koberger leaves Washington and heads home to Pennsylvania for winter break.
01:05:16He drives across the country with his father in that white Hyundai Elantra.
01:05:20Hello.
01:05:21How you doing?
01:05:22How y'all doing today?
01:05:23So it's a long trip from Moscow, Idaho, all the way to Pennsylvania.
01:05:28Koberger's pulled over twice during this time.
01:05:30Right up on the back end of that van, pulled you over for tailgating.
01:05:34So y'all work at the university there?
01:05:37Actually, we work there.
01:05:38And he's pulled over for following a vehicle too closely, both times.
01:05:44By the time the co-workers arrived back in Pennsylvania,
01:05:47the FBI had taken over that genetic genealogy search from Othrum.
01:05:51And just over a month after the murders, investigators get a name.
01:05:56On December 19th, the investigative genealogy team leader calls in and he says,
01:06:01Hey, Darren.
01:06:01He goes, I have a first name for you.
01:06:03It's Brian.
01:06:04And he goes, Hey, we also have a last name for you.
01:06:06Koberger.
01:06:06And he drives a white Hyundai Elantra.
01:06:10Once we had his name at that point, immediately we knew that he was in Pennsylvania.
01:06:15When did the surveillance on him start?
01:06:17Immediately.
01:06:20He only left the house three times and he was noticed to be wearing rubber gloves
01:06:25all the times he had left the house.
01:06:28They need a way to test that DNA.
01:06:31So they pull the trash.
01:06:33The agent on scene had made contact with the trash company to be able to ride the truck
01:06:41to collect the trash.
01:06:44They sort anything that could contain DNA.
01:06:47They found an item in the trash that had male DNA that comes back and says,
01:06:51We have DNA in this trash that is the father of the DNA left on the knife sheet.
01:06:56Once we had the DNA paternity match from the trash pole.
01:07:01From a Q-tip specifically.
01:07:02Yeah, we knew at that point that we had the person whose DNA was on that sheath.
01:07:08At that point, you have what you need to get an arrest warrant for Brian Koberger.
01:07:14And news of an arrest spreads fast.
01:07:17The big story on Action News tonight is a major break in the murder of four Idaho college students.
01:07:23People in this sleepy Poconos community are stunned.
01:07:27We got live feed.
01:07:28We saw the armored vehicles roll in, then make entry, and we get the call out in custody.
01:07:35And we want to get right to our breaking news as we come on the air.
01:07:47The arrest of a 28-year-old man in Pennsylvania in connection with the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students.
01:07:54Nearly seven weeks after the brutal murders, an arrest is finally made.
01:08:00Pennsylvania State Police make that arrest.
01:08:03We've got live feed coming from the helicopter from Pennsylvania State Police.
01:08:06We're getting constantly updated on what's going on, telling us, yes, they've got Brian in the house.
01:08:12We saw the armored vehicles roll in, then make entry, and we get the call out in custody.
01:08:18Detectives arrested 28-year-old Brian Christopher Koberger in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania.
01:08:25Koberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.
01:08:31Authorities have not revealed a possible motive just yet.
01:08:41People in this sleepy Poconos community are stunned that one of their own has been arrested in connection with this grisly crime.
01:08:48Agents from the Scranton office of the FBI, after the arrest, interviewed Brian's parents.
01:08:54They were, you know, aghast.
01:08:56We do know there was conversation among the family about, hey, Brian does drive a car like that, right?
01:09:04Do you think, you know, and it was immediately quashed.
01:09:09There's no way Brian could do this.
01:09:10No way.
01:09:10Nobody can comprehend that their child is capable of something like this.
01:09:16What was his reaction to the national media attention?
01:09:22He was very surprised, actually.
01:09:24He didn't realize that it would garner national media news, I would say.
01:09:29Really?
01:09:30Yeah, it actually was.
01:09:31It was surprising because he inquired as to which outlets were actually circling.
01:09:41Police department, search warrant, come to the door.
01:09:43After the arrest, police in Washington searched Koberger's apartment.
01:09:48And in these just-released photos, you can see the Spartan place he left behind.
01:09:52One of the few personal items they found is a birthday card from his parents.
01:09:57He was taken back to the Pennsylvania State Police Barrett's immediately upon being arrested and had given what turned out to be about a two-and-a-half, three-hour statement.
01:10:10It was a significantly long time that he interviewed until he asked for an attorney.
01:10:14What did he tell you about that interview?
01:10:16He was very limited.
01:10:18I didn't want to know a lot about the case because he was going to have an attorney that would represent him on the murder charges.
01:10:27I want to make sure he's aware of how the process is going to play out.
01:10:31I want to make sure he understands that the death penalty may be considered in the case.
01:10:35You thought right away it would be a death penalty case?
01:10:37Oh, absolutely. I had zero doubt.
01:10:42Brian Koberger agreed to be extradited, and he was flown across the country to the Moscow Pullman Airport
01:10:47and then brought here to the Latak County Jail to face murder charges while the world watched on.
01:10:54When they brought him off the plane, people were like,
01:10:57We got him. Thank God he wasn't a local. He wasn't one of us.
01:11:02Koberger's attorneys enter a not guilty plea for him, insisting that he's innocent.
01:11:08But prosecutors decide to pursue the death penalty.
01:11:12And as they prepare for trial, they dig into every part of Koberger's life, particularly his digital life,
01:11:18sifting through his Amazon purchase history that showed he bought a K-bar knife and sharpener back in Pennsylvania.
01:11:25And they look at his cell phone and computer searches right up until the days before his arrest.
01:11:33On Christmas night, the 11 o'clock hour, heading into the very early morning of the 26th,
01:11:38he was on a rudimentary website called Serial Killer Timelines, just a list of hyperlinked names.
01:11:45And he just went down this list and clicked one after another after another for like two hours.
01:11:51December 27th, there's some sort of a show that he watched.
01:11:58It's a YouTube, and it's Ted Bundy sort of standing facing forward with a hood pulled up and over the front.
01:12:05And on 12-29, just two days later, he's taking a picture of himself looking like Ted Bundy.
01:12:13And although investigators weren't able to make a direct link between Brian Koberger and any of the victims,
01:12:19those digital forensic experts did find something interesting on his phone.
01:12:24The FBI gave us keywords and said, OK, search for these things.
01:12:28We needed victim names. We needed, what did they call their Wi-Fi?
01:12:32So all these things, we searched for it.
01:12:33And I remember saying to Jared, I have a hit for Mad Greek.
01:12:36Remember, Mad Greek is that Moscow restaurant where Maddie and Zana both worked.
01:12:41This search for Mad Greek, however he arrived at it, was done through the Google Maps app.
01:12:47What we can say is that Mad Greek was presented to him on his phone.
01:12:53It doesn't necessarily draw a hard line to these victims.
01:12:58Now to the sudden and stunning turn in the Idaho College murders case.
01:13:02After insisting his innocence for nearly three years,
01:13:05defendant Brian Koberger today pleading guilty to fatally stabbing four students.
01:13:10Koberger had maintained his innocence the entire time,
01:13:13but he decided to change his plea from innocent to guilty.
01:13:16That was huge.
01:13:18And as part of that plea deal, prosecutors agree to take the death penalty off the table.
01:13:24We got what we wanted and we got what the law...
01:13:27When you say we got what we wanted, though,
01:13:30that we does not include all of the victims' families.
01:13:33There are victims' families that have been very public about wanting more,
01:13:38perhaps a taped confession, the location of the murder weapon.
01:13:41And you don't feel like you could have asked for those things.
01:13:45There was no legal way we could have compelled those.
01:13:48And quite frankly, there is nothing that he could have said that I think would have been credible or believable.
01:13:54And the minimizing and the lies that would have even been more damaging and frustrating to everybody.
01:14:06You've seen it. Thank you.
01:14:09Without a trial, Koberger moves right to a sentencing hearing.
01:14:12And the loved ones for the victims finally get their own day in court.
01:14:18All right, so with that, let's start with the impact statements.
01:14:22I just wanted to reclaim their power.
01:14:26The truth is, as dumb as they come, sloppy, weak, dirty.
01:14:31Brian Koberger pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.
01:14:44But he still has to sit and face the families of his victims.
01:14:48All right, so with that, let's start with the impact statements.
01:14:53The first statement comes from one of the two surviving roommates, Bethany Funk.
01:14:57She's unable to be in the courtroom herself, so her statement is read by her friend
01:15:01and also one of the first people to arrive at the house that day, Emily Alon.
01:15:06I was so frantic that morning and scared to death, not knowing what had happened.
01:15:12And when I made the 911 call, I couldn't even get out the words.
01:15:18And from then on, I don't remember a thing.
01:15:21I wish more than anything I could hug them one last time.
01:15:24And I wish I could tell them how much I love them.
01:15:27I will keep living for them as long as I am lucky enough to still be here.
01:15:33And then, it's the second surviving roommate, Dylan Mortenson.
01:15:39Dylan, just take your time, all right?
01:15:40Okay.
01:15:41I was barely 19 when he did this.
01:15:53I was forced to learn how to survive the unimaginable.
01:15:58I couldn't be alone.
01:16:00Then there are the panic attacks.
01:16:03The kind that slammed into me like a tsunami out of nowhere.
01:16:06I can't breathe.
01:16:10I can't think.
01:16:12I can't stop shaking.
01:16:15Living is how I honor them.
01:16:17Speaking today is to help me find some sort of justice for them.
01:16:22He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice.
01:16:26One after another, family members described the loved ones they lost.
01:16:39And notably, among them, is Kaylee's sister, Olivia Gonsalves.
01:16:44My sister, Kaylee, and her best friend, Maddie, were not yours to take.
01:16:50They were not yours to study, to stalk, or to silence.
01:16:55The whole time, I just wanted to reclaim their power, reclaim their voice,
01:17:02especially in a way that, you know, really was the end to this chapter.
01:17:06You got under his skin?
01:17:08Absolutely.
01:17:10Disappointments like you thrive on pain, on fear, and on the illusion of power.
01:17:15The truth is, the scariest part about you is how painfully average you turned out to be.
01:17:23The truth is, as dumb as they come, stupid, clumsy, slow, sloppy, weak, dirty.
01:17:32Did you say everything that you wanted to say?
01:17:37For the most part, yes.
01:17:39I didn't want to break eye contact.
01:17:41So that gaze was so intense, and it really did feel like, like a standoff.
01:17:49You want the truth?
01:17:51Here's the one you'll hate the most.
01:17:53If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like a pedophile,
01:17:59Kaylee would have kicked your ass.
01:18:02The Chapin family was not at the sentencing.
01:18:13They chose instead to honor Ethan privately.
01:18:18Hi!
01:18:20The Chapins recently got to visit that DNA lab that played such a crucial role in solving this case.
01:18:26It came after a chance meeting a few years back.
01:18:28This stranger, who I did not know, came up and she just wrapped her arms around me and hugged me.
01:18:34And she just said, we are working on your case and you don't have to worry.
01:18:37Everything will be okay.
01:18:39Everything is going to be okay.
01:18:40That there will be justice in the outcome.
01:18:42I mean, that was what I was trying to relay.
01:18:44Right.
01:18:45And that's how it felt.
01:18:46Jim and I would rely on that information to, you know, in your toughest days, you were like,
01:18:51Kristen told us not to worry.
01:18:53And we, and we use that.
01:18:54The Chapins now want to help advocate for the work being done at this lab.
01:18:59Maybe our, our family could become a face for the victim's side of what these people do.
01:19:05If we can make a positive impact for the future on some level, it's important.
01:19:10I miss him every day.
01:19:14When you lose your son at 20, it's a different loss.
01:19:19And I miss him every single day.
01:19:26Alrighty.
01:19:26It's nice that, you know, when we have so many different photographs and videos and
01:19:30we can still hear their voices, they were some really, really cool people.
01:19:36It helps to remember them and not what happened to them.
01:19:42Hopefully one day they're just seen as who they are and not what happened to them.
01:19:51And just as college is starting again, there's now a memorial garden at the University of Idaho
01:19:56with a plaque bearing the name of each of the four victims.
01:19:59A touching tribute.
01:20:00As for Brian Koberger, David, he received four life sentences,
01:20:03one for each of his victims and an additional 10 years for burglary.
01:20:07As part of that plea deal, he waived his right to an appeal.
01:20:11That's our program for tonight.
01:20:12Thanks so much for watching.
01:20:14I'm Deborah Roberts.
01:20:14And I'm David Muir from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News.
01:20:18Good night.
01:20:26Good night.
Recommended
39:35
|
Up next
1:52:21
1:20:57
1:35:06
1:46:38
1:18:25
1:31:07
1:25:09
1:59:36
1:46:33
1:06:18
1:38:17
1:08:55
1:13:24
1:15:29
1:23:03
1:33:42
3:05:00
1:25:06
1:33:09
1:23:03
1:26:51
Be the first to comment