Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays, we unravel the conspiracy or the cult. And on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it.
Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on your podcast app. because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before. DNA testing has come a long way in the last few decades. Thanks to all the advancements, many cold cases have finally been solved, even those that seem too far gone. It's a huge step in the right direction.
But there are still some things technology can't do. After four college students were brutally murdered in Moscow, Idaho in the fall of 2022, police used genetic genealogy to narrow in on a killer. For the victim's families, this was a double-edged sword. They knew who was responsible for the attacks, but even with a positive ID, police couldn't force the killer to confess.
which meant that no matter how much the families wanted an explanation, they might never get one. And living without that knowledge was almost as difficult as living without their loved ones. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. but you don't always know which part you're on.
Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios that comes out every Tuesday and Thursday. Crime House is made possible by you.
Follow Murder True Crime Stories and subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts for ad-free early access to each two-part series. This is the second of two episodes on the Idaho College murders. In the fall of 2022, four students were found brutally stabbed inside their off-campus home. Their names were Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonzalez, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
Last time, I introduced you to the victims and walked you through the hours leading up to their deaths. In the early morning hours of November 13th, an intruder broke into their house on King Road. Six students were there that night, but only two made it out alive. Today, I'll take you along as we follow the investigation.
Thanks to multiple surveillance videos, local authorities were able to hone in on a suspect, one who had been hiding in plain sight. But even with a killer in custody and a guilty verdict, there are still plenty of lingering questions that may never be answered. All that and more, coming up.
On November 13th, 2022, Madison Mogan, Kaylee Gonzalez, Zanarkar Nodal, and Ethan Chapin were found brutally stabbed inside their home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. They were between the ages of 20 and 21, and all students at the University of Idaho were The three girls lived at the property while Ethan, Zanna's boyfriend, had been spending the night.
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Chapter 2: What led to the identification of Bryan Kohberger as a suspect?
But why? Detectives began canvassing local stores, asking if anyone had recently purchased a knife that would fit the sheath they'd found. They scoured dumpsters near King Road, looking for evidence, but came up empty. Meanwhile, the governor of Idaho allocated up to $1 million in state emergency funds to support the ongoing investigation.
By then, the crime was national news and the tips were pouring in. Detectives received thousands of calls and emails from across the country. Most led nowhere, but investigators tried to follow every one. Then, a tip came in that stood out. On November 29th, 16 days after the murders, a Washington State University police officer called the Moscow PD.
He had been working on the university's Pullman campus, just 10 miles west of Moscow, when he spotted a white Hyundai Elantra, the same type of car that had been spotted circling King Road. It was registered to a 28-year-old PhD student named Brian Koberger, who was studying criminology. The Moscow police ran Koberger's driver's license.
They noticed that his photo matched Dylan's description of the masked man she saw. He had an athletic build, was about 5'10", and had bushy eyebrows. They also discovered that Koberger had recently changed his license plates. He had been pulled over in August while driving a white Hyundai Elantra. At the time, he had Pennsylvania plates, which were set to expire on November 30th.
He'd gotten new Washington plates on November 18th, just five days after the murders. It could have been a coincidence. His plates were set to expire. or it could have been an attempt to cover his tracks. Detectives filed a warrant for Coburger's phone records. They wanted to build a profile and see if he had any connection to the murdered Idaho students.
At the same time, though, they continued to chase every credible lead. They didn't want to get tunnel vision until they had clear evidence pointing to the killer. It was a good strategy. and the problem was they couldn't tell the community about it. If they did, Koberger could get spooked and try to flee or destroy evidence.
But as the weeks dragged on, the lack of arrests and information created another issue. The murders hadn't just shocked Moscow, they shocked the entire country, and it seemed like everyone had an opinion about what happened. Armchair detectives began trading theories online. First, there was Dylan and Bethany, the surviving roommates. People wondered why they waited so long to call 911.
The attacks took place around 4 a.m., but the police weren't notified until nearly noon. Some even accused the girls of being involved. And then there was the guy in the hoodie. Kaylee and Maddie had stopped at a food truck called the Grub Truck around 1.30 a.m. on November 13th.
The Grub Truck live streamed their late night rush, and the video of Kaylee and Maddie ordering food had gone viral after it was posted on TikTok. The video showed a man in a hoodie speaking to them for a few moments. Soon after the murders, other students recognized the guy. He was a student in a fraternity. People quickly began accusing him of being the murderer.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation unfold after the murders in Moscow, Idaho?
He was especially interested in collecting data about violent criminals. For example, in the months before the Idaho murders, he posted a survey on Reddit. He introduced himself as a student investigator working with two professors at DeSales. He wanted to find former inmates who would be willing to answer some questions.
In the survey, he asked them to describe their, quote, thoughts, emotions, and actions from the beginning to end of the crime commission process. At the time, it sounded academic, but in hindsight, it read like something else entirely, a step-by-step guide to committing a crime.
Even so, Koberger did so well in his graduate program that one of his professors recommended him for a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University. Koberger was accepted and moved to Pullman in the fall of 2022. The campus was about 10 miles away from the University of Idaho in Moscow. At Washington State, he began pursuing a doctorate in criminology.
He also worked as a teacher's assistant, grading papers and teaching undergraduate courses. Classmates later said he was brilliant, but strange. He didn't go to parties or socialize. He seemed mechanical, like he was observing people rather than engaging with them.
Just days before the murders, Koberger had been unusually animated during a discussion about forensics and how prosecutors use DNA evidence to win convictions, or alternatively, how they could lose if there was no DNA left behind. It must have seemed obvious to his peers. Of course, prosecutors needed evidence. That wasn't really a hot take.
But in retrospect, it seemed like Koberger was speaking to himself. Because by that point, he'd already been casing the house on King Road. And if he wanted to get away with murder, he had to make sure it went off without a hitch. A few days later, on November 13th, 2022, Koberger drove to Moscow in the middle of the night and crept into the King Road house around 4 a.m.
He fatally stabbed Kaylee, Maddy, Zanna, and Ethan. Then he drove back to Pullman as if nothing had happened. In the days that followed, Koberger continued to go to class and great papers. The semester came to a close without the police even questioning Koberger. He must have thought he was in the clear. So he drove back home to Pennsylvania for the holidays without a care in the world.
He didn't know that FBI agents had started surveilling him and that by the end of December, they would have enough evidence to arrest him. Five months after Koberger was extradited to Idaho, he appeared in court for his arraignment. When the judge asked for his plea, Koberger stood silent. By law, that meant the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
The four first-degree murder charges made him eligible for the death penalty, but his lawyers would spend the next months fighting to take that off the table. And as the case made its way through the courts, the focus in Moscow shifted to a different kind of battle for closure. The owner of 1122 King Road, the house where the murders had occurred, donated the rental to the University of Idaho.
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Chapter 4: What evidence was crucial in linking Koberger to the crime scene?
Others point to something darker, the possibility that Koberger identified with the incel community, short for involuntary celibate. It's a movement of men who feel rejected by women and turn that resentment into hatred and violence toward them. The group's most infamous figure, Elliot Rodger, killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014.
He targeted a sorority house of women who he felt had rejected him. At DeSales, students recalled Koberger studying Roger's case closely. He seemed fascinated by it. And according to Liz Garbus, co-director of the docu-series One Night in Idaho, it did seem like either Maddie or Kaylee were the intended victims of Coburger's rampage.
Coburger went straight to their room, and they were the first ones killed. Some theorize that maybe Koberger had crossed paths with one or both of them before the murders. Maybe he had felt rejected by them, or maybe he just became obsessed. It was hard to say, but Koberger may have left some clues behind online.
Before Koberger's arrest, thousands of internet sleuths gathered in Facebook groups trading theories about the case. But one user in particular stood out. He went by the name Papa Rogers. His profile picture was an old sepia-toned photo of a soldier, and his posts were odd. He asked questions about how the killer might have held the knife. Which hand? Which grip?
He even mentioned the knife sheath before that was public knowledge. And for some reason, he kept saying that the white Hyundai Elantra was a red herring. Then Koberger was arrested, and when the Facebook group's administrators saw his photo, chills went down their spines. The resemblance between Koberger and Papa Roger's profile pic was uncanny.
and the username sounded like a reference to Elliot Rogers, the UCSB shooter. Most suspicious of all, once Koberger was arrested, Papa Rogers never made another post in the group. Authorities later said they found no evidence linking the account to Koberger, but many still believe it was him that he'd been trying to insert himself into the investigation.
Even with a conviction, there's something unsatisfying about this case. Koberger never gave a confession or any kind of explanation. And for the families, friends, and even the online sleuths, that missing piece is incredibly hard to reconcile. We want answers. We believe that if we can make sense of crimes like this, we can protect ourselves from the same fate.
If we know someone's motives, we can be on the lookout. But in the end, Coburger isn't the one we should remember. It's the lives he took. Kaylee's fierce loyalty. Maddie's easy laugh. Zanna's quiet confidence. Ethan's big-hearted charm. There's no neat ending here. But when you strip away all the theories, all the fear and anger...
What's left are four names, four faces, and a town that we'll never forget. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next week for the story of a new murder and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios here at Crime House.
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