Accused Killer Brian Kohberger Back in Court, After Waiving Speedy Trial

Published Aug 30, 2023, 10:00 PM

Nancy Grace sits down with high-profile defense attorney, Dale Carson, and former homicide detective, Chris McDonough, to discuss Bryan Kohberger's defense strategy. The 28-year-old graduate student claims he has an alibi for the night of the killings and that the DNA tying him to the crime scene "was planted." With three other samples of unidentified male DNA discovered in the King Road home, Kohberger's lawyers may rely heavily on a "Some Other Dude" defense. Join us to hear Carson and McDonough's thoughts. 

Crime stories with Nancy Grease.

Brian Coberger heading back to court in about forty eight hours. What will happen when he once again is face to face with a judge. Will victim's families show up? Many important details leading up to this moment. We now know that Coburger's lawyer and Taylor, has waived her right to a speedy trial. After all this, all this whining and moaning and complaining about a speedy trial demand and now they wave it. It was all just a game. It was all just a ruse. This as they contested DNA and they are questioning three unknown male DNA found at the scene of this home where multiple co eds had lived. People were in and out all the time. It was the real party house. That could have been anybody. So I'm trying to figure out which way the defense is headed, because I guarantee you they're going to claim that they had to waive their right to a speedy trial because they didn't have enough time to review the state's DNA evidence b S. That's total BS, the state has said, and this can be confirmed that the crime lab hasn't finished all the DNA analysis, so how can they turn over what they don't have. I mean, as he Grace, thanks for being with us. Joining me right now, two special guests that are intimately familiar with the legal aspects and the factual aspects of the Coburger prosecution. Deal Carson is joining me. High profile lawyer out of Jacksonville, former FBI agent, former cop in Miami Dade, author of Arrest Proof Yourself. You can find him at Delcarsonlaw dot com. He's been studying the legal angles, says this first broke and I mean when the murders occurred. He's been on the case also with me. Chris McDonough, you know him well. He is the director of the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective with around three hundred homicides under his belt, twenty five years in law enforcement. I found him on the YouTube channel, the Interview Room, when he was doing a very slow drive through all around the King Road murder scene. That's when I found Chris McDonough. Deal Carson. Chris McDonough, thank you for being with us. First of all, Deal Carson. How many times have defense attorneys file, including you, filed speedy trial demands when you know more than the man of the moon intend to take the case to trial within six months total.

Bs is But the reason ostensibly is that the defense hasn't had an opportunity to fully prepare for the case as the prosecution already has. The prosecution has all the evidence, right but.

In the first two minutes. But no, the state has handed over all the evidence. It's not like they're hoarding it or hiding it. Agreed, let me tell you a story. I almost said a funny story, but it wasn't funny to me. Dale and Chris, you know only too well from being on the stand. I was preparing a death penalty case where infants, several infants in their baby beds were killed because of arrival. It was called Set Set Set gang. All right, what this means is that the women that were the girlfriends of the gang members got into an argument with the women that were girlfriends of the other gang members. I seem to call over some clothes. Yeah, so one gang throws a Molotov cocktail into the home of the victims and says, let's fry them babies, and they did. The babies were burned to death instantly. Yeah. Now that's not a up on the case. I don't know what it is, but my point is leading up to it is that the defense kept saying and the trial there was no speedy child a mand This trial was long, long down the road. I'm talking at lea another year. They said I did not hand over a file, and I said, I've given you every single thing I've got. So I finally handed my whole file everything I had to the judge. Guess what it was. They were right, and I was right. There was one thin file that the homicide cops, for whatever reason, inadvertently I don't know, had not given to me. So there was a stack of I think about twenty pages the defense didn't have and I didn't have. So I remember taking the stand and saying, I've handed over everything I've got. It went that far. I actually had to take the stand, and then we found out where the missing pages were, and that was a real blow to me to be accused of withholding information. I want to win, but I want to win fair, and I want to right people behind bars, and I want to win the fair way because to me, prosecutors have the duty not only to seek justice, but to do it ethically.

Yep.

The defense is not bound by that. So when you say, y'all Carson and the state's got it. They've had it all this time. I don't know that they've had it all this time. There's still DNA results the state doesn't have.

Well, they collected it, and it's an opportunity for the defense.

You mean the cops collected it and hand it in the evidence. The prosecutors did not collect any evidence.

Well, no, not directly, not correctly. That's what I was going to tell you, is said, Look, in a case like this where the defense is not entered a plea, of course, plea for the defense. And what that means is there's no reciprocity. The government has to turn over everything it's god, but the defendant does not. So that's an interesting wants to what's going on here.

Well, let's talk about that for just one moment. And Chris mcdonnah, you got to hear this, because one thing the defense does have to hand over is notice of alibi. Because in our jurisprudence system, which was brought over from the common law of Great Britain, it's not trial by ambush forever, the state has to hand over the evidence to the defense. Not always true the other way around. The defense doesn't always have to hand over everything to the state. But if there's an alibi, the defense does have to hand that over, so the state has a right to investigate it to find out if it's a big, fat lie. So get this, Chris mcdonnah Brian Coiberger's defense hands over an alibi, but they won't say what the alibi is. All they say is he likes to go driving around eight at night alone. If that's not pervy enough, what looking at everybody's windows? How many times did he drive by the King Road murder scene that night according to his cell phone or in the past according to his cell phone conveely that night. I think he had a cell phone on airplane motor turned off at the time of the murders, but then it was quickly turned back on for his circuitous route home. What kind of an alibi is that, Chris McDonough speaking of having to hand over evidence that you like to drive around late at night by yourself.

Well that and Nancy, you've been on this from day one in terms of really inside this guy's head. And then the defense's positioning here that alibi in of itself is going to be very problematic for them because I think any you know, if we just applied common sense, you know the fact that he now you know, presents this alibi of well, you know, he's just out for a nightly straw in his car. You know, of course we all do that right at you know, three o'clock in the morning, and he just happened to be driving by that house twelve shepherd times, which.

I'll tell you what, Prince, if my husband, David Lynch got up out of the bed and went for a drive by himself at three am, I think my head would blow off.

I agree.

My guess would be to begin up at five o'clock in the morning and start feeding guinea pigs and cats and dogs and grandmammies and twins and get everybody to school in Oh he is not going for a drive at three am and breathing in the fresh air. No, No, go ahead, Yeah, I mean have do you go driving in the middle of the night, Chris mcconno, because I'm sure your wife would like to hear about that, do you.

Yeah, My wife would kill me. Literally. I would be on the opposite side out a car.

Some you go driving around at three am in the morning, what to get some nice freezing fresh air.

Well, that's an strange alibi because it's not.

Really an alibi.

All he's saying is I don't really know where I was, which is not an alibi.

Yeah, you're right. An alibi is I was here at this time, and these are the witnesses. So it's totally yes.

Time stories with Nancy Greece.

Chris McDonough, you and I have gone to the scene many many times. It's freezing cold, cold, The roads are treacherous. Their home was on an elevated slant and very tricky. You know, the streets leading up to their home, the apartment, saw the student apartments, barely two cars can cross and they're going up these slick streets with covered in ice. So why is he driving around in sub zero tempts at three o'clock in the morning on a treacherous road.

But he can't Ernie right, So he's got no money. Where's he got the money for gas?

Yeah, And to dovetail into what you're thinking, Nancy, the only thing I can think, and this is, you know, obviously just my opinion is either A they're going to come up with some type of medical insomnia, you know, connection through all the snow, problem.

Hold on, I got to write this down. Hold On, I can see it coming that. Okay, okay, now what did you say? Insomnia and what you know?

And they're going to connect it back to his condition, uh you know, is the snow you know problem that he was having, you know, a medical condition there, And of course that opens up the timeline for the earlier videos that have been floating around, you know, about an hour before what the authorities have shed they believe is the exact time the homicides go down.

Wait, wait, wait, wait you know. Hold on, Chris mcdona, I know you've got three hundred homicides under your belt and you're the star of the interview room and Del Carson, I know your former FBI and you've written a book and your high profile, all your blah blah blah. But Jackie is waving in Sydney or waving a sign visual snow. There it is the condition visual snow. So he's about driving, guys. I feel a little bit guilty as I've recounted the story they're going to sleep in here because I know what I'm about to say. Oh here she goes again. But when I drove that route, I swear and you can ask I think I had Kelly with me. Illy, I don't know if you were with me or not. The night we drove that route that he took and the oh, you couldn't see a thing. When a Simmy would come toward me, I would have to just pull off the road because I could not see anything. I've got twenty twenty and twenty eighteen, and it was so dark. All I could see were big lights coming straight at the car. So I just pull off and wait. And I'm usually a much more aggressive driver that said, Chris, did I interrupt you? Or did I interrupt deal? Carson? Is there?

No, You're fine, Nancia, And you know we're always honored to be here as your guest, and you were so right on target here right. One of the things I've been thinking about, you know, knowing that both you and I have driven it, and this idea of Okay, why are they going so far to say in the motion that well, we'll figure out this alibi on the state's witnesses through questioning right? Well, I'm thinking, well, how is that them to play here? And the only thing I can think of is this medical condition. But I could be one hundred percent wrong.

However, that are you talking about insomnia? Because what the perfect cure for insomnia you can't go to sleep is to go out in the sub zero call Champs with your windows down and the snow that's supposed to get you sleepy.

Exactly. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm going in my head. But that in of itself, if you take that night for an example of all the activity, you know, just hours before this tragedy goes down, there are kids everywhere from the college. I mean, we know about the police contact with the alcohol and that, and then there's these videos that have surfaced where they're showing the cars, you know, various cars pulling up and some people believing that's them. The authorities haven't released that yet, but what that does is it opens up a narrative, and you know this more than anybody, for the fence to start saying some other dude, some.

Others saw defense, some other dude did it, oh.

Yep, And then they create their theme around it and they start projecting it into the public through these motions and see what sticks. I think that's what's been going on here. And you've been on top of this, you know, from the from the beginning. We've talked about this multiple times.

Dale, Carson, Chris mc donna, and I are dragging you by your toenails. You can bring your wife, just bring everybody, the cat, the dog, to everybody. You've got to go out there and you've got to wait like we did around midnight and take that route that he took about a fortese of sid Wasn't it a forty five minute route from the murder scene to his apartment and it's actually about a nine to twelve minute drive. He was out on this long, circuitous route getting himself as far away from the murder scene as possible home. It was like his how his apartment at Pullman is here, the murder scene is here, So he goes all the way around in the dark, no street lights to right here instead of going boop, That's that's what happened. Now right there. A jury is going to say, no way.

That's exactly right, that's exactly right, Nancia. Jury is going to begin with this case with him surveilling in some way or another that house where these young gals lived, and then they're going to bring it right up to the very end. Where is that sheet for the knife? Is found with his DNA on it and a reasonable jury is going to find him guilty. Clearly, they want to postpone this trial as long as they can in order for the hubbub if you will, to die down, which it's not gonna because this is such a massive killing in a rural area. There are forty four counties in Idaho. They don't even have a public defender's office per se. What they do is they engage the services of attorneys who are in the areas because it's so rural and there are different rules for every one of those counties, so they don't have to have depositions day they can.

Now, before you go off on depositions, isn't it true? They never planned to try this case within this speedy trial period at all. This is just to acrue to drive this take crazy because I can tell you this much, Dale, And I don't know if this happened to you, Chris, when you would be a witness on the stand as homicide detective. But I don't care if it was a shoplifting, I don't care if it's a theft by receiving, if somebody hit me with a speedy they're going out first. I mean Monday morning, as quickly as I can put that case together. And then when I do get a conviction, I'm lucky enough to get a conviction, then they're getting the max because.

Look, but speedy trial issue, at least from the public the defense side, is this, you set it for speedy trial when you know the state has to change its behavior in order to give you a reduced sentence. That was never going to happen in this case. And so when you request speedy the government knows that you think your client is provably innocent, and that's never been the case here. So you know it was a tool.

Just a way to screw with the state. Yeah, they never intended. And the outcome is if the state didn't try it on time, there would be an automatic acquittal and there is no retrial that jeopardy attaches.

Yeah, but if the jury panels not born in jeopardy doesn't attach.

Guys, I was just handed this. It's highly complicated and it's very tech oriented. It's perfect. Sidney drew this, Okay, ten minutes. I love holding up any type of a visual apartment to house. As I mentioned earlier, I thought it was not it's ten minutes from the apartment to the house. But the route he took that night is from the house twenty minutes this way, twenty minutes that way. In twenty minutes. It wasn't forty five sending your right, It was more like an hour. He goes for an hour drive. And how is he going to explain that to a jury? I mean that just starts with Now, okay, let's talk about what's going to happen to court. And again, Chris mcdonnet dale please jump in.

Hey, Nancy, can we talk want to just go back just for a second on the drive.

Yes, didn't he.

Show up that morning as well?

Yes?

Isn't there wasn't there evidence that they believed he potentially went back, and there was reports of his vehicle in the area that morning.

That's right, he went back, and it reminds you of Scott Peterson going back after he murdered Lacy, his wife and unborn child Connor. But go back and look out of the San Francisco Bay and just look at it, because there was a GPS tracker on his car, so we know he went back over and over to look out there. What was he looking to see? Her body was going to pop up. But that's really common amongst defendants is they go back to the scene to just see what's going on.

They want to order you to live. It didn't mean that's part of their conduct.

Typically, right, So how is this going to play into the end?

Bundy did that. All of the major serial killers have done that. And although we don't know that he is a serial in the sense of having clearly click killed other people previously, we do know that with a quad murder, he certainly is a serial killer and he has all of the we'll think about it. He is so in the law enforcement that he tries to be a police officer, to be a really well known, if you will, graduate student in criminal justice. I mean, what other indications are there that somebody's just involved terribly in law enforcement.

Yet he can't get into it.

Thank God.

Time stories with Nancy Grace.

There hasn't been a lot of discussion about this and all because everyone is focused on the challenge to the DNA on the knife sheath. And one thing I want to point out, and I think you and I the three of us have talked about this, maybe off camera. They've got to have a way to fight that DNA. It's his DNA on the knife sheath that he left under the body of Maddie Mogen. His DNA, we believe, is on the buckle the snap of that knife sheath. Now they've got to come up with the way. They're either going to say the DNA science is flawed, that his DNA was there incidentally or accidentally, maybe he went to a gun and knife show and opened up that knife and left his DNA, or he can claim it was planted. But think about it. The knife sheath was collected from under Maddie's body before Brian Coburger became a suspect. What I mean by that is significance. The knife sheath was taken and handed over to the crime lab to the scientists to try to find DNA or fingerprints, and it was only weeks and weeks later that Brian Coburger was ID So how could they have planted the DNA? And it's very likely that some of the cops in there processing the scene had on a shoulder camera body cam, so there may even be video of when the knife sheath was found. So just follow this through to its logical conclusion. That means that someone would have to after Coberger is named as a suspect, get his DNA, not his father's DNA, but his DNA, and go to the crime lab, get in to where they're holding all the evidence, probably get someone to conspire with them and plant his DNA Coburg's DNA on the knife sheet.

Nancy, that narrative is why you were a good prosecutor, because that's exactly he's gonna tell the jury.

I mean, yeah, people love to hear about, oh, the evidence was planted, but think about what it would have required to plant his Coburger's DNA on that snap on that sheet. That did not happen. Okay, so they got to fall back on the other three attacks on the DNA. But Jackie was holding up a sign and I agree, because we're all focusing on the DNA and the unknown male DNA that was found somewhere in the house. I don't know it was in the kitchen, was it on a doorknob, was it in a bathroom? Where was it? Don't know? But they haven't been able to match that other DNA to a single person. And we don't know of any male DNA that was in the girl's bedrooms. That said. No, one's been talking about the fact that Coburger is fighting tooth and nail to keep cameras out of the courtroom. To you, Chris McDonough, why do you think Coburger doesn't want a camera in the courtroom?

Well, I think for him it's quite Frankly, I think it's more about attorneys than it is for him. I think he he probably wants them in there, but the attorneys don't want them in there because they know that the public will see what he is about through his body language, not only how he reacts, you know, I mean you you know, I can only imagine when you would ask questions to a witness, to watch the defendant's reaction. You know, Jerry's pay attention to that very closely, as we all know. And you know, just to jump real fast back to the DNA gap, I E. You know, somebody planted it, i e. Law enforcement and or the government. But it also if we were to try to think through this a little bit deeper with the some other dude theory, then they would have to find somebody that had a direct correlated link to Covert somehow put that sheet in his hand and during that time of that relationship, and then of course that individual would be the suspect who planted it up into that bedroom. And what's interesting here is the fact that it's in the bedroom, and that is a very personal approach. And Coberger would be the most logical individual through his personality type and through obviously all of the forensic diagnosis of this guy psychological. Yeah, go ahead, remember following on that, Remember they were killed with a.

Knife, a seat knife.

Probably, Yeah, well, and that's a very personal instrument, right, dell.

Y Again, Sydney and Jackie are waving frantically at me, and they're right again. There is Coburgers and the state has this purchase of the night a knife and a sheep exactly like the one the sheet that was found. They goes with the knife seven months before the murders. He buys a knife and a sheath and it looks just like the sheath found there with the matching knife. The knife has never been recovered. So my question would be, so where's that knife and that knife sheath? If this isn't it, then where is it exactly?

And that's a very high bar that they're going to have to try to get over just that piece alone.

Hey, listen to this, guys, the defense is I bet they don't. They do not like cameras exclusively looking at their client. And I just want to remind everybody of something. And we went round and round about this when I took a job at Court TV with the late great Johnny Cochrane, God rest his soul. I didn't agree with the thing he ever said, But man, he could win a case. Jerry's love him, and I can see why, just you know that kind of person. They walk in the room and everybody wants to be with them. They's just, you know, charismatic. Always with every case the defense did not want cameras in the courtroom. Well, the majority of the case is why and why did Court TV think there should be cameras in the courtroom? And our Constitution, the Founding Fathers there's something called the minutes. The minutes are what's being said say on the floor in the room when statutes are being passed, and our Constitution calls for open courtrooms. And in the minutes, the Founding Fathers said, we want the courthouses to be as big as it takes for the whole community to watch a trial. We are not Russia, we are not China, where proceedings happen in secret. We're not being run by the Taliban, who are jury, judge and executioner. Our proceedings are in the open and in our world. That means we all see justice unfold. Here, where Del Carson is, where Chris McDonough is, we can watch justice unfold. That's what the founding fathers said. And if the defense doesn't like it, well they shouldn't done the crime.

Well. Listen, when you look at Brian Colbert's photographs lately, he's been smiling. Now, what person charged with a quadrupful homicide would be smiling in any event during the course of any court appearance. You'd be absolutely mortified. But not Brian Coberger. Why is that? And that's a question for the psychologists, But I suspect it's because he's enjoying himself.

Yeah, And I asked the psychologist that same question Dale, and his answer was because he's the punisher.

Yeah. All right, fair enough, guys.

We have our eyes on the courtroom as these proceedings go forward, and we pray for justice. Dale Carson, high profile lawyer joining that out of Jacksonville, former FBI, former cop, Chris McDonough, former homicide detective director Cole case Foundation, star of YouTube's The Interview Room. You know we're laughing at certain points, but I can tell you some people that aren't laughing. The families of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogan aka Maddie, and Kelley gonsold Us because they will never be at home for another Christmas, another party, another birthday, another mother's day. It's all over. They are never to be seen on this earth again, and their killer must be brought to justice. Goodbye, Sai