Chapter 1: What tragic event is the episode centered around?
Hi there everybody and welcome to 2020 The After Show. I'm Debra Roberts and today we are talking about a case that so many people have been talking about for a few years actually. It is that horrific story out in Idaho. Four college students murdered in their off-campus home during the early morning hours.
We've been following the headlines over the course of the summer and really since this story began. Brian Koberger, as many of you know, was sentenced to life in prison. And we're going to talk more about that later, pleading guilty to all charges in this case.
It was a story that was featured on 2020's episode called Idaho Justice, which you definitely want to watch if you haven't seen it already. And it's streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. ABC News correspondent Kena Whitworth has been following this story from really the very beginning, as well as the podcast King Road Killings.
Chapter 2: Who is Bryan Koberger and what is his connection to the case?
She has been reporting and meeting people all connected to this story. And Kena, this is the first time you've come on the podcast with me, I think. Welcome.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Yeah, good to have you. Well, this is a story, you know, I mean, wow. I probably stretched you in all kinds of ways as a correspondent doing this because, you know, the tragedy and also just the glare of the story for so long. A well-known shocking case, four young lives cut short, all these young people stabbed to death. And you were covering the story.
Chapter 3: How has the media coverage affected the small town of Moscow, Idaho?
We know there's a resolution in the case now. We're going to get to that. But give me a sense of these young students and what was it like for you covering this story?
Yeah, I mean, you really start to learn a lot about these families, about these kids, and frankly about yourself in the process when you cover a story this closely for this many years. These students have become a part of my life too. I planted yellow and white tulips in my garden in honor of Ethan Chapin. Whenever I see pink, I think of Madison Mogan. If there's a big
you know, boastful laugh in the room, I think of Kaley Gonsalves. And man, anybody that can DJ, I think of Xana Kernodle.
You really got to know their personalities, didn't you?
Absolutely. And it stood out to me early on when Kaylee's sister said, they are all so much more than their last day. It's really important to remember how these kids lived their lives.
And so throughout our coverage at ABC, we have really tried to make sure that the audience gets to know them for those reasons and that their names are the ones that ring true and that Brian Koberger's name is the one that sort of slips away.
Yeah, in the background. Well, you've done such a great job of that. And, you know, you covered the story for 2020 a while back. And then now, of course, you brought fresh reporting with visits with these family members and just really an opportunity for us to know these victims. You also were the very first person to talk to the Moscow police chief, among other folks in this case.
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Chapter 4: What insights does Kena Whitworth share about the victims' families?
Tell me a little bit about what that was like.
Yeah, it takes a lot to build a relationship with people, especially in a town like Moscow. This is a small town in northern Idaho. People live there because they want a quiet lifestyle. They appreciate being secluded. So when the national media sort of pounced on Moscow, Idaho, it was a bit jarring. And over these years, I've been able to build relationships.
And the police chief at the time of the murders, James Fry, I was the first to be able to speak with him during the investigation and the first to speak with him after the sentencing as well. It's taken an incredibly emotional toll on him. What I think you'll find in this 2020 episode, though, is also brand-new interviews with investigators that led this investigation.
These are the ones with the boots on the ground, digging through the files, doing the interviews, doing that hard work, and they speak with us. And so we heard from the FBI lead investigator, the Idaho State Police lead investigator, and the details that they reveal are really stunning about this investigation and about how they were able to find
Brian Koberger when there were thousands upon thousands of tips pouring in during this nearly seven-week manhunt when the entire community was just afraid that perhaps this person would never get caught. Boy, those investigators tell you now the kind of work that they were doing to make sure this community would find justice. We also hear from the friends of these victims.
These are the friends who were called that morning, the friends who were called before that 911 call was placed. They were the first to arrive. And it's stunning because you hear from them the sort of panic that they were dealing with while also having this idea that things don't happen. Nothing bad happens here.
In that little small town.
Exactly. And so, you know, we spoke with Hunter Johnson and Emily Allant. And Hunter Johnson was best friends with Ethan Chapin. And he tells this story about, you know, hearing this call from Dylan Mortensen, one of the surviving roommates, to his girlfriend, Emily, a lot, saying like, hey, can you come over?
And he's like, there was something in her voice that made me just feel like I got to go. And he said, I threw on my slides and went. And then you see the response video from Moscow police, the first officer on scene, and you see Hunter Johnson in his sweatshirt, his shorts, and his slides. It all just really comes together in this episode.
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Chapter 5: What were the details surrounding the investigation into the murders?
And in a very calm manner, he starts this investigation. And I think what was the most clear to me from his body worn video was the amount of confusion that was playing out. You see these students gathered around the home, and he goes through the house, and he very quickly finds Zanna Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. And the tenor changes immediately.
And he goes back outside, and he starts talking with Dylan Mortensen. And he has to eventually go upstairs to find Kayla Gonsalves and Madison Mogan. And I think it stands out because you realize Nobody standing there in the parking lot was aware that Kaylee and Maddie were upstairs at that time. It was kind of like, we don't know where they are. We're not sure, you know, it's about noon.
no one really was aware that they were there. And there's this startling confusion. And you hear Dylan, right in that moment, tell the story of seeing someone in the house. She says, I'm pretty sure he was in all black. He had this mask. And she's trying to talk about what she could see and hear. And she's trying to put it all together in real time while she's standing there freezing and crying.
And what struck me was when she said, I went downstairs to Bethany's room and we went back to bed telling ourselves nothing ever happens in Moscow.
The idea that they're survivors. I mean, you know, that these roommates were slain and then there are folks who are left behind. I mean, this story just was unfolding in the most horrific way imaginable. And you, of course, were following it. And we talked in the very beginning about there being a guilty plea now. So more information has been released.
And of course, we were able to include a lot of that in our 2020 episode. When we come back, Kena is going to tell us a little bit more about the details of this case and also more on where Brian Koberger is now. So stay with us.
Suomen suurin alevaltaa Ideaparkin. Tule tekemään vuoden parhaat löydöt, kun koko talo on täynnä huikeita alennuksia. Shoppailun lomassa voit nauttia hyvästä ruuasta, rentoutua vesimaailma louhessa, tai viihtyä vaikkapa hottokeilauksen parissa koko perheen kanssa. Ideapark kuin toinen maailma. Vapaus matkustaa raiteilla. VR. Yhteisellä matkalla.
We're back with Kena Whitworth, who has covered the Idaho college murders since this story first broke. She was on the ground in Idaho the very day that this all happened. And, you know, Kena, in your reporting, you know, of course, in the very beginning, everybody was trying to wrap their minds around the idea that these college students were killed in this incident.
in this little town but eventually of course we come to know more about Brian Koberger who was initially a person of interest and of course was eventually charged in this case and he lived just about seven miles or so from the crime scene. After he was arrested we started to learn a little bit more about him. He was a teacher's assistant at Washington State University.
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Chapter 6: What was the community's response during the manhunt for the suspect?
He was getting his PhD in criminology of all things. And you talked to people who knew him in the piece, which was just fascinating. The faculty and the students who some of them got a chill, you know, just sort of knowing him. Talk about him a little bit and what you were able to learn and what surprised you.
Yeah, we spoke with a police chief who was the police chief in Pullman, and then he's the police chief at Washington State. And he was able to share a lot with us because he had initially interviewed Brian Koberger because Brian Koberger wanted to be an intern in the Pullman Police Department. He wanted to conduct research in rural areas.
And it was a Zoom interview that they did, and he said that he knew even over that that something was a little bit off, that he would not be able to connect with his team, which he felt like was really important. And so he was not chosen to intern there, sort of went by the wayside. He then, Brian Koberger then arrives at Washington State.
And in the filings that we're getting now after the sentencing, there's just story after story, and they all have a similar tenor and tone. that Brian Koberger was a bit awkward, he was a bit standoffish, he had sort of a deep gaze.
That he came across as the smartest guy in the room?
Absolutely. And he wanted people to know that, that that was often the only time that he was really speaking or engaging was when he wanted to showcase his intelligence. And generally, there's just this sort of off-putting feeling about him from cohorts, from professors. And there was these stories about him sort of blocking the exit for some female cohorts and students.
He would sort of stand between them and the door, making it just awkward for them to leave. He was known as an incredibly hard grader and that was something that he sort of dangled out there for his dad when he started having trouble at the university. He sort of told his dad, well, you know, it's because I'm a really tough grader. He sort of leaned into that and what really it came full circle.
When we talked to Chief Jenkins at Washington State again was when Chief James Fry pulled him into the room and said, hey, we think we have a name. It's Brian Koberger. Well, Chief Jenkins said the hair on the back of his neck just stood up because he said, I know. I know that name. I interviewed him. Here's his resume. Here's the information that I have.
What you revealed too was that some of his colleagues thought that he would wind up in some kind of an issue, maybe not something as extreme as this, but they thought he would wind up in some kind of an issue. Kena, while he was getting his Ph.D. way across the country, he actually grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
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Chapter 7: How did the families react to the release of gruesome details?
But he was at home all this time, right? Even when he was at DeSales getting his master's, he was still commuting. He was still living at home. And so he wasn't having that kind of deep interaction with people until he moved all the way across the country to Washington State. It was the first time. He was ever really away from his family.
And I think some of the most fascinating things that we're learning is about his habits through his cell phone. When they analyzed his cell phone, they found that he had very few contacts in his phone. He interacted with very few people. And this really stood out to analysts was that he kept his parents' names in his phone as mother and father. And isn't that interesting?
And that's how he would refer to them in text. He would say things like, father, why isn't mother answering? That's how he would talk about his parents with whom he had nearly constant interaction with his parents every single day.
Kayna, everybody was so fascinated by this guy when he would come into the courtroom. And for so long, we would see him come in and out when there were hearings and so forth related to the upcoming trial. And he almost seemed to be enjoying that limelight. I don't know. Do I have that wrong? Or is that what people sort of surmised?
I think that that's a fair assessment. He seemed very comfortable, certainly, in the courtroom. There was a lot of attention paid to how he acted in the courtroom by everyone, by everyone watching. And I think that he was certainly aware of that, his legal team certainly aware of that.
And it's fascinating, though, because you think about him being broadcast, right, all over the nation, frankly, all over the world. And then when they dive in, they found like countless selfie photos, you know, pictures he had taken of himself. But then he never did anything with them. You know, he never posted them. He never shared them.
He was like he had taken these pictures, what, for himself?
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there were a lot of things that were revealed, really disturbing discoveries from investigators in this case. And when we come back, we're going to talk more about not only that, but also, Kena, about the victims' families and how they react to the details that have been released. So don't go anywhere.
You have to take out. Säärebori.
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Chapter 8: What legacy do the victims leave behind and how are they remembered?
But There were a lot of gruesome and just difficult details that were actually being discovered and revealed. And the family members of these kids had, you know, different feelings about some of these details. And that was a whole issue. I mean, obviously for us, that was a big part of the coverage in the story and being sensitive to the families too, right?
I think you're absolutely right. And it's important that we all realize that every single family is going to grieve in their own unique way. And so I think it's important to not compare their reactions because they're not the same. And we know that Keely Gonzalez's family has really been out at the forefront. They've been the ones talking. They've been the ones sort of...
fighting some battles with prosecutors and with detectives. They wanted to know everything. They wanted all the information that they could get. That was something that brought them some solace. I sort of found myself leaning on the words of Olivia Gonzalez, Kaylee's sister, because she was really strong because she didn't want people to not know the depravity of the crime.
It was important to her that people were aware that her sister was stabbed some 34 times, many of those times in the head and face area.
And the impact that this had on them as well as the family. They wanted people to know that grief and that pain, didn't they? Yes.
Yes. And to think about a mother having to learn that about her daughter and, you know, sharing with you that Kaylee's mom, when the report came out that Kaylee was unrecognizable, I mean, that was really hard for Christy Gonsalves to read that. And I think that they were frustrated because they were reading that at the same time that the media was reading it.
They didn't have that information prior. You know, they weren't given any kind of exclusive information ahead of time. But then, you know, other families like the Chapin family, you know, they they chose to be at the hearing when Brian Koberger changed his plea to guilty and they wanted to be there for Ethan. But when it came time for sentencing, they wanted nothing to do with it. Exactly.
They wanted to honor him in their own way. And that is really important to them, too. And that's how they show their strength. And so it's important to really understand that every family, again, is different. And the Chapin family and the Mogan family would really like to put a stop to the release of these crime scene photos. You know, to them, why do people need to see that?
Kober for the longest time, of course, was steadfast, not guilty, not guilty. And, you know, we I think we were all just waiting to see how this case was going to play out. You kind of thought he would never plead. And he ultimately did. He was facing the death penalty. And, you know, obviously, we'll never get out of prison. What do you know about what has happened since his sentencing?
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