Explicit

Nightmare in Moscow

Published Jun 12, 2024, 9:00 AM

Since the November 13, 2022 murders of four Idaho college students, much new information has been uncovered. The producers of The Piketon Massacre explore it all.

Check us out online:

www.instagram.com/kt_studios

www.tiktok.com/@officialktstudios

www.kt-studios.com

So much has been reported about the magnitude of violence that these four victims suffered.

Detectives have been provided with the results of those autopsies and determined that it was likely all four victims were asleep.

In my experience, there is nothing bloodier than sharp force injury, particularly if you have multiple.

This is the Idaho Masacer, a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio, Season two, Episode one, Nightmare in Moscow. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker and Gabe Castillo. It's been one year, six months, four weeks, and one day since the senseless and brutal murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylee, gonsoalve As, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, more than a year and a half since the victims had their lives cut short and their family, friends and community members had their lives irrevocably changed. In that time, a suspect has been brought into custody and pretrial hearings have occurred, shedding light on how the trial may pan out. Three point six million dollars has been spent to date by the State of Idaho and an alibi for the accused has been put on the courts record. Here's Stephanie.

This particular case is everyone's worst nightmare. It's kind of like the scariest movie. It checks every terrifying box. Just imagine four incredible young adults at the most optimistic time.

They had great friendships.

Just ahead were finals and all of their firsts things like graduation, in first jobs, first love, and he did everything by the books. They went out in pairs, they were safe, they were inclusive, and they had many friends in and out of their house. Yet even then they were slaughtered one by one with a knife, so violent, so seemingly personal. This could have been an attack on any one of us, and for the accused. On the other side, Brian Coberger was a criminology PhD student. He was a scholar and also had his whole life ahead upwardly mobile and by all accounts, came from a really loving family. And can you imagine what it's like for his family. His father was a maintenance worker who went into debt putting his son through college. His mom worked at a Pennsylvania school assisting special need students, and he was the baby of their family, the only son.

He had two older sisters.

One of his sisters went on to be a mental health therapist who, by the way, lost her job because of her brother's arrest, and his other sister was an actress.

The only thing.

Really notable about that is that she was in a horror film where the plot line is a group of students are stabbed to death by a masked killer, and on the one hand, he says he is innocent, maybe he's just being targeted. Because if that's not the case, then this is the most sinister story ever told.

Last season, a general overview was known of what happened the night of the murders. In the preceding months, a more chrysalized timeline of both the victims and the accused whereabouts has emerged. Saturday, November twelfth, twenty twenty two, was a celebratory day for many students at the University of Idaho. They were just sevent days away from break, looking forward to sitting down with family for Thanksgiving. On November twelfth, at eight o'clock PM, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle went to a party at Japin's fraternity Sigma Kai, a brunette beauty Twenty year old Xana was a junior majoring in marketing. Here's her sister, Jasmine, speaking at the memorial service held on December twod, twenty twenty two.

Sanah, you will not be forgotten. You have impacted so many lives and have given people so much love.

For her high school graduation, Xana decorated her mortiboard with butterfly and flower cutouts and the words for the lives that I Will change. Twenty year old Ethan Chapin was a freshman majoring in sports management. He was a triplet whose brother and sister also attended the University of Idaho. Here's Ethan Chapin's mother. If everybody was like Ethan Chapin.

In this world, it would be a better place.

Ethan's obituary states Ethan lived his best life. He loved the social life and j murals, and tolerated the academics. Xana and Ethan were couple many admired for their deep love of one another. One of Xana's two surviving roommates placed the pair at Ethan's fraternity party between nine pm and one forty five am Saturday, November twelfth, ten pm to one thirty am Madison Mogan and Kaylee Gonzalvez were seen at the Corner Club bar in downtown Moscow, picked up by security footage. Madison Mogan was a twenty one year old senior from Cordelaine who was majoring in marketing. Her grandmother said she'd always been a caring person who kept many long term friendships and close ties with extended family. Here's Madison's boyfriend, Jake. Mattie was my best friend.

She was the first person I talked to every morning, the last person I talked to before bed.

Madison was close with twenty one year old Kaylee Gonzalvez since the sixth grade. The pair, both beautiful blonde girls, looked more like sisters than friends. Twenty one year old Kaylee was a senior majoring in general studies and was in the Alpha Pi sorority. In fact, Kaylee had recently moved out of the house on King RhoD and only returned to show Mattie the car she'd bought. She planned to use it when she moved to Austin to start her life. Kaylee was just weeks away from graduating, and in Instagram post for Madison's twenty first birthday Kaylee posted pictures of the pair throughout their lives and wrote quote, I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to be the main character in all my childhood stories. Madison replied, I love you more than life, my best friend forever and more. Here's Kaylee's father. These girls were absolutely beautiful.

They came here together and in the end that they died together.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. Number thirteenth, the temperature in Moscow, Idaho hybrid around twenty eight degrees. The air was thick with ice fog. At approximately one thirty am, Kaylee and Madison were seen at a downtown food truck. The grub truck located less than a quarter mile south of the bar they'd been at earlier, the Corner Club. Here's some audio of the footage captured on a Twitch live stream. It is the last known audio of the two best friends. Welcome back, ji Hi.

I would like the.

Yep, so what you want to do?

Is we actually.

Cool?

Thank you absolutely.

Here's the exact timeline of this night. One am, According to a surviving roommate, Ethan and Xana returned from the fraternity party to Xanna's home at eleven twenty two King Road one fifty six am. Just eleven minutes later, Madison and Keighley left the food truck using their Sororities designated driving service. By two am, everyone was home for the night. Two forty two am, a cell phone connected to accused murderer Brian Coberger's home in Paulman, Washington, showed him leaving his apartment At the time of the murderers. Coburger was a twenty eight year old PhD criminology candidate at Washington State University. He was located approximately ten minutes from the University of Idaho. Cell Phone data showed the accused traveling south for five minutes until two forty seven am, at which point the phone stopped reporting to the network. The accused was driving a twenty fifteen white Hondai Atlantra. Three twenty nine am, a white sedan is seen passing by the victim's residence on King Road. Four o'clock am. Xana Kernodle receives a fast food delivery to the house. For four AM. There is another sighting of a white sedan driving down King Road past the residence. Four to twelve am. Xana is on her phone scrolling through social media. Four twenty am, a white sedan is seen leaving the area at high speed. The accused phone appears to be turned back on and pink. South of Moscow, Idaho, on State Highway ninety five.

The bodies of three women and one man, all twenty one or under, were found together over the weekend.

The autopsy report reveals the victims were.

Stabbed to death. Here's Stephanie.

So much has been reported about the magnitude of violence that these four victims suffered, and everyone understands that what happened that night was an unparalleled tragedy. But here's what we know as a matter of fact. Taken from the arrest Affidavid, filed on December twenty ninth, twenty twenty two.

Some portions of the eighteen page statement are redacted, including specific injuries sustained by the victims. It begins when investigators arrived at eleven twenty two King Road at approximately four o'clock PM on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two. In an effort to understand the intricacies and protocols of scene security and processing of a crime scene, we reached out to forensic expert and host of the podcast Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan. I asked Joseph what an officer is looking at or thinking about when they enter a scene for processing. Here's Joseph.

It's hard to avert your eyes when you see evidence of extreme violence. In this case, you would have had copious amount of blood everywhere, and so as an investigator, thinking as horrible as that is, you have to maintain your vision here to separate the horror of what you're seeing from the practicality and where should I step? Where shouldn't I step? You know, you look obviously for a weapon or evidences of forced entry. If you've got sliding glass doors, have they been kicked in? And then I think from a security perspective and also an evidentiary perspective, you check the door, hopefully with a gloved hand. You haven't had a chance to look into hidden places at that point. Top, and there's the rub legally, because even though there's a homicide, you're still going to need a warrant to go in there and process the sea because apps in a warrant, anything that you collect in that environment suddenly is invalid. I'll give you a great example. If you've got like a foot locker or a chest of some kind. By law, when you go into a residence like this, even though they're dead bodies, you can't go opening those areas without a warrant. Okay, So you have to get a warrant before you can go digging through chest of drawers or looking in what are generally referred to as hidden spaces. If there's a closet without with a door on it, for instance, you can from a safety perspective, the law allows you to open that door and say, is anybody in here? Flash or light because that's a reasonable place that you would find a victim and you're trying to assess it. But you can't go peeling through clothes and pulling out shoe boxes and all that sort of thing. So it seems vast, but there is a prescribed methodology for going through one of these scenes. Your job, after you've verified that people are in fact dead in that house is to secure it. No one else is to come in here, period, forget it until those that show up with a warrant and those that show up with the authority to investigate the scene arrive, and then you turn it over to them.

At that point, the AFFI David Reids quote. Upon our arrival, the Idaho State Police forensic team was on scene and was preparing to begin processing the scene. Moscow Police Department Officer Smith, one of the initial responding officers to the incident, advised who would walk me through the scene? End quote? I asked Joseph Scott Morgan why it's important to be escorted through by an initial responding officer.

You only get one first look at any scene, period, and the person that would have walked in and have found those bodies initially, they essentially have a roadmap in their brain at that point in tom because trust me, even for the most hardened of police officers, they're going to remember. But from a practical standpoint, when you have another individual that is high ranking, maybe has more responsibility, it is important that you walk through. And this is what is actually there's a term for this. This is called the initial walkthrough.

Continuing with the AFFI David quote, Officer Smith directed me down the hallway to the west bedroom on the second floor, which I later learned was Xannakernodle's end quote. Here again, Stephanie.

Xana Cernodle, age twenty, was in a sorority and loved her dog named Seshine. She was remembered by her family as always being positive, funny, and was loved by everyone. She and Ethan were in love and by all accounts, a solid couple.

If David continues quote, as I approached the room, I could see a body later identified as Cernodles laying on the floor. Cernodle was deceased with wounds that appeared to have been caused by an edged weapon. End quote. I asked Joseph Scott Morgan what we could take away from this statement?

So what we can learn from just that statement alone is that these wounds were so obvious that a person like this that doesn't see them day in and day, they recognize that these are sharp horse injuries. And apparently they were so glaring that he had no trouble, you know, making that assessment. Zanna was where not in her bed. She was on the floor. So you have that question as an investigator, why is this young lady on the floor and not in the bed. That's an important point for investigators to get because if if you say that she was in her bed, that implies that she was attacked in her bed, killed in her bed. And not moved even in a post mortem state. Okay, now you would have to go back to the EMTs. I think that initially responded and the question you want to ask the EMT is okay, let me get this straight. Now, when you walked into this room, did you see this young woman on the floor or did you take her from the bed and place her on the floor, because, for instance, if she's unconscious, they're going to try to take life saving measures. Right, it's not a good idea to do chest compressions on a bed that gives you need a solid backing for that, and many times they will remove people and put them on the floor. Relative to her injuries, she did have an awareness because you know, we hear a lot in forensics about defensive wounds, okay, and sometimes they're mild. You know, you get bruises on the forearms, like in a blocking position, you can get stab wounds on the forearm. That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about a blade being drawn through the palm of her hand down to the point where and it has been stated this is not me saying it that her tendons were cut. So that is a robust injury to say, the very least with a very sharp edged weapon. So if you can draw a blade across the surface of a hand, you're not just breaking the epidermis or the dermis or the subke fat. You're going through muscle. You're going through structures. At that point in time, it's a deep, deep cut or cuts. And so that assessment is very important to make.

Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. Continuing on with the Affidavid quote. Also in the room was a male later identified as Ethan Chapin. Chapin is also deceased with wounds later determined to be caused by sharp force injuries. End quote again Stephanie, followed by Joseph Scott Morgan.

Ethan Chapin was also twenty years old. He was actually the first born of triplets. His siblings also attend the University of Idaho. His mom said that he was the most incredible person you'll ever know, and according to his obituary, he lived his very best life in college.

First off, we have to begin to think about his remains in relation to Zana's remains. Ethan's remains in relations Ethan's a big kid. He's robust. He's an athlete. You can only imagine when faced with an aggressor he would respond. So I think one of the questions we would have to ask is was he lying in bed asleep and he awoke as a result of his disturbance, covered the distance from the bed to the door, and there he's met Bonace Sealin. This seems to run contrary to even pressers that I have borne witness to, where it is stated in the presser that the victims were asleep.

The presser or press conference Joseph refers to, took place on November twenty first, twenty twenty two, just one week after the multiple homicides. Here's Roger Laner. Moscow Police Department Operations Captain.

Detectives have been provided with the results of those autopsies and determined that it was likely all four victims were asleep during the attack. Some of the victims had defensive wounds.

Again, Joseph Scott Morgan.

When you put that out there and you say that the victims were asleep where they asleep and died in their sleep, because I don't know. For me, my default position automatically is if you tell me that that's what I'm thinking, but that doesn't seem to be the case. We've already got evidence that has been and clearly stated that Zanna was found on the floor. All right, if we can establish that she didn't commonly sleep on the floor, then you know that she had an awareness. Then you know, we think about Ethan lying in the doorway, Well, what does that mean? Does it actually mean that just the top of his head was lying on the threshold. Was he entirely out of the room and lying back into the bedroom? You know, and look, with both of these victims, I have to think that there was very intimate contact. Now I don't mean that in a sexual way. I mean that this is a tussle, this is a fight. So you think about contact trace evidences, that is transitioning between the assailant and the victims. And in what order did this happen? That's important to ask. It's not just the action of the killing. It's those moments, those Perry mortems, which means in the midst of death, that are very compelling to me because you know that there had to be very intimate, up close and personal contact between the assailant and these victims.

For further clarification, I asked Joseph about the significance of Ethan being reported found quote in the room in this report versus other reports we've read placing him in the doorway.

Maybe it is semantics, but semantics aside. When this kind of information is released to the public, it's very confusing because it goes to confusion about the dynamic of the event. And remember, and this is very very important. There has yet to be a jury selected, and this data is out there. This information is out there, and this is kind of very specific information about the scene, very specific. You're not just talking about two victims here that died of sharp force inentry. Now we've discussed being on the floor, we've discussed specific injuries. That's very detailed information that has now jumped out from inside of that kind of protective investigative bubble. And so it might be semantics. However, it is important and this is going to have to be explained, and it will be explained, that question will be asked. All of this is going to be on display in court. I don't know how far it will go, but it's certainly interesting because I was confused because from when I initially heard the presser that the Chief gave. He plainly stated they were attacked while they were asleep. Okay, don't know what that means, but I tell you it doesn't necessarily marry up with the idea that one victim is lying in the doorway, another is on the floor adjacent to the bed.

The affidavit continues quote. The third floor consisted of two bedrooms and one bathroom. The bedroom on the west side of the floor was later determined to be Kaylee Gonsobasis. I later learned there was a dog in the room. When my LESCo Police officers initially responded end to quote, I asked Joseph, if there's a standard protocol at a murder scene when a pet is present, when you.

Actually have an animal present at the same I've worked cases like this where you know, I remember one case in particular where had a cat that was super saturated in blood. As a matter of fact, they attracted it to blood and there were bloody pawprints everywhere. As a result of that, you would want to get that animal secured as quickly as possible. If you have a collar that has what appears to be blood evidence on it, whose blood was it? And that can go to sequence of events. If you find a collar and it's on the third floor of the home, but yet you find blood sample on that collar from individuals that are on the second floor of the home, how did that happen? How does that explain? So, yeah, you should treat that animal as if they are evidence, and they are evident. So the dog plays a crucial role.

Once again from the affidavit quote. Officer Smith then pointed out a small bathroom on the east side of the third floor. This bathroom shared a wall with Madison Mogan's hereafter Mogan's bedroom, which was situated on the southeast corner of the third floor. As I entered the bedroom, I could see two females in the single bed in the room. Both Gonzalvez and Mogan were deceased with visible stab wounds. End quote. Here's Stephanie followed by Joseph Scott Morgan.

To say that Mattie was loved by all. Is such an understatement. Mattie was known for her laugh in her offbeat sense of humor. Mattie was a waitress at the Mad Greek restaurant and was using her marketing skills to run a social media campaign for them. She planned to move to Boise after graduating in the spring. Kaylee and Madison Mogan were best friends since they were little girls. Kayley was the middle child of her family and she did absolutely everything she said her mind to. According to her family, Kally was the ultimate go getter and constantly was looking for an adventure. She had recently bought a twenty sixteen Range Rover and planned a trip to Europe, and she was expecting to move to Texas after graduation.

Out of all the cases that I've handled over the course of my career, you're talking about trauma, and this includes even shotgun wounds. In my experience, there's nothing bloodier than sharp force injury, particularly if you have multiple and after a period of time. Forgive me for saying this, but after a period of time, after someone has been deceased and they bled profusely, the blood will begin to coagulate and crust. It's hard to make sense of anything in low light circumstances, particularly if your first eyes on and in this case, I think, even when compared to Xana and Ethan, these two young women's bodies are contained. They're in a single space. So I'm not saying that it would be easy to process those bodies, but given the contained space that they're in, it wouldn't be as taxing I think for the investigator. And you can also begin to understand the dynamic I think a little bit of the event because if you have blood on the bodies of those downstairs that has been transferred from those upstairs, that goes to sequencing because essentially, you know, if you're using the same weapon, you have the same person that's perpetrating this, and keep in mind, they're going to be super saturated with blood. I will stand by that comment. They're moving about and transferring all of this from person to person. The knife itself acts as almost like a method of inoculation with this blood, So you're introducing blood into other victims as you'd go down the tom lot.

Here, the affidavit continues quote I also later noticed what appeared to be a tan leather knife sheath lying on the bed next to Mogan's right side when viewed from the door. The sheath was later processed and had the United States Marine Corps Eagle globe and Anchor insignia stamped on the outside of it. The Idaho lab later located a single source of male DNA parentheses. Suspect profile left on the button snap of the ninth sheaf end quote. Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in a moment. At this point in our interview, Joseph pulls out the exact same make and model knife and sheath that's alleged to be the murder weapon.

That's a This is the exact weapon. It's the same one that was used.

Oh my gosh.

So this thing is like really heavy. It's very robust, very robust, and Courtney, right out of the box, I could have shaved my beard with this thing. It's that sharp, right out of the box. And you can see this one's got the it's got the USMC. That's what they.

Found, Oh my gosh.

And this I think is where they recover the DNA from. And he may have wiped the whole damn thing down, okay, but the one place that he would not have accounted for is this button snap. And if you drag your thumb across it like that, you're going to put skin cells in here. Because these people in the lab, Courtney, I got to tell you, they're pretty amazing. They consider things that you and I don't consider. This is what we harvested from that area, and if he wipes that damn thing down. Let's just say he prepared before he got there, Okay, I thought about this, so he would be walking in with this like this, and I've always it almost seems Shakespearean. I've always envisioned him getting on that bed or standing at the end of the bed and maybe bumping the bed to wake them up. And he gets into this frenzy and he attacks him with a knife, and he's a sadist and he's inflicting pain, and in this frenzy he drops the sheath and I can only imagine he had an oh shit moment. I guarantee you when he rolled back to his apartment, He's like, wait, where is this thing? I got the knife, but I don't have the sheath. You know. I'm thinking he's got this going on in his mind, and at this point he's passed the rubicont.

Our. Goals for this season are multi pronged. Here's Stephanie.

We're going to unpack the facts, hopefully to better understand the law, search and seizure issues at play, how the demolition of the crime scene may or may not have impacted things moving forward. We want to contextualize what's been happening for family and friends in the wider community in the wake of such a tragedy, and we really want to understand the psychology what might shape the mind of a killer.

This season on the Idaho massacre, what can you do with evil?

You can exterminate it?

Then here their alibi defense apparently is that he likes to drive around and see the moon and the stars.

Do I buy it?

No. We all like to believe in our hearts that if we come across somebody who's violent or dangerous, that we'd get a Spidey sense. Did you have that feeling that he was capable or off? To be honest, I never got any of those feelings.

However, I do remember this one incident.

That happened social past and psychopaths simply do not have a feeling when you hurt someone else. If you think about it, it makes them pretty much perfect killing mission.

I was stuck in this cycle of Oh my gosh, what's going to happen next, what's going to happen next?

Or could this happen to me?

The underlying psychological phenomenon is that they are doing to themselves what the killer didn't do to them until the case is over.

It seems nonsensical to say the least to destroy the building.

Is there an immediacy for a jury going to a house? Psychologically speaking, I would say yes.

This is a death penalty case because there were four people killed all at once in a really brutal manner.

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masacre is produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Tooi music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Ascer is a production of KTI Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

The Idaho Massacre

On November 13, 2022, four students from the University of Idaho are brutally stabbed to death in an 
Social links
Recent clips
Browse 88 clip(s)