The murders of four University of Idaho students captured the nation’s attention in the winter of 2022. Could the media circus surrounding the investigation impact the case against Bryan Kohberger?
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Since Moscow police began investigating the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students at an off campus home on November thirteen, they have claimed it was a targeted attack. The Leyta County Prosecutor doubled down on those claims, saying investigators believe one of the victims was the intended target.
This is the Idaho Massacre a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio, episode eight The Circus of Murder Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KAT Studios, with Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell, as the mystery of the brutal murderers of Keille Gonsalvez, Madison Mogan, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan shape and unfolded. The national spotlight on the case grew brighter when Brian Coburger was arrested at his parents' home on December thirtieth. That public spotlight intensified. The newspaper headlines and breaking news alerts for the criminologists turned killer practically wrote themselves. Reporters, TV anchors, crime writers and legal analysts poured over the probable cause Affidavid, laying out the case against Coburger. As they flocked to Pennsylvania and then Idaho to cover his extradition, hearing, and first court appearance in Moscow. The worldwide appetite for information about the investigations seemed impossible to satisfy. But before Coburger even arrived in Idaho, Latta County Judge Megan Marshall issued a non dissemination order. The move barred attorneys, law enforcement officials, and anyone associated with the investigation from talking about the case. Judge Marshall defended the sweeping decree, saying the gag order was needed to protect Brian Coburger's right to a fair trial. Two weeks later, Judge Marshall expanded the gag order to include the families and lawyers for the victims from speaking publicly. Journalists were furious, and more than twenty media organizations challenged the restrictions. So too did the lawyer for Kley Gonsalvas's family. Attorney Shannon Gray, argued the gag order violated the family's right to free speech and silence the victim's family's voice while those closest to the investigation were barred from talking about the case. Public demand for information only intensified. Curious spectators and wannabe detectives on social media became obsessed with the case, and Brian Coburger tours passed. The home on King Rhode in Moscow became a regular occurrence. Chat forums on websites like Reddit exploded and its online community both fervently followed the investigation and at times inserted itself into the story, sifting through the facts, speculation, and rumors of the investigation. While the gag order prevents leaks and has kept the pre trial hearings orderly, a circus has developed outside of the courtroom on social media and chatforms like Reddit. From a distance, the circus seems harmless, but for any involved in trying the case, the fear is the circus could seriously impact the prosecution and trial of Brian Coberger.
I was actually late to finding out the story. I think it was on Thanksgiving. My cousins were actually all talking about it at Thanksgiving table, and I had no idea that this aid honestly occurred.
By day. This anonymous redditor works in a New York City office.
I started looking into it just on my own through news articles, and then my cousin actually suggested I look on Reddit if I want to find the real deal.
But by night he's part of the hundreds of thousands of people who flocked to sites like Reddit to sift through the latest information in the University of Idaho murders and debate the many aspects of the Brian Coberger investigation.
And I actually had never used Reddit, I even know how to use it, how to find communities, posts, etc. And then she showed me one community, and then I just got immediately sucked in and went so deep into every crevice of every theory at that time and now can't get enough.
In the immediate days and weeks following the gruesome murders, the number of discussion groups on websites like Reddit and Facebook exploded. With no name suspects in the murder investigation, internet sleuths began pouring over the few details of the case. As we previously discussed, some Internet users incorrectly identified innocent people and charged them on social media with crimes they were innocent enough. Others tried to find links between the few people randomly caught up in the tragic events, such as the food truck employees and the door dash driver who delivered late night snacks to Xana Kernodle. Even the personal lives of the victims' families became fodder for the chat forums. When Xana Kernodle's mother, Kara, was detained on November nineteenth on drug related charges, many on the Internet tried to link her to the murders. Here's the anonymous Reddit user speaking with producer Jeff Shane.
People are invested in the story. They wanted to go longer, and like, I can't help but like read some of these comments and like see some justification in it. It's kind of like the saying where there's smokeler's fire, and so everyone kind of latches onto everything. So whether it's that Uber driver that talked about the house to someone that combined with the fact that a couple of their parents were drug addicts or were arrested on drug charges, that maybe some of them seemed on drugs and police videos when they were when police had to show up for noise complaints, and so then you strain all these individual things together. But then the fact that Brian as an ext drug addict, So then I don't know, like it's hard to make sense of all of that, and everything kind of seems like a coincidence one way or the other, that maybe Brian was maybe it was drugs. Maybe Brian was involved because it was involving drugs, that's one way to make the connection. Or maybe because it was drugs and serious drugs and their parents that this is like a cartel and the kids had to pay for something the parents did. I mean, you could just go so crazy, but still kind of plausible.
I'm curious what your answer is, why this case, Why do you think you're so invested in it?
You know, it's really interestingly, I don't know. My first thought about why I was interested in it is because it feels like it could happen to anyone in a college town like that when you hear on reddite people being like, oh, it's a huge party house. Oh they didn't lock the door. Okay, but we didn't lock the door either, And there were strangers in all the time, you know, eight and out. You didn't know who anyone could be, if they were supposed to be there, if they weren't, And so I think part of it is around the fact that it could just happen to anyone.
When Brian Kolberger then an unknown twenty eight year old criminology student, was arrested on December thirtieth, nearly seven weeks after the murders. The chat forums responded with a flurry of reactions.
When they made the arrest of Brian end of December. It's kind of like the Reddit community was kind of like pissed, not whether or not at that time it was him or not, but that kind of their rogue investigation was over. So the boards went quiet for a while right after New Year's and then I think think it was when the aff and David came out, when the list of items that they seized or his house came out. Then it reignited. Everyone kind of lit a fire into everyone's ass to challenge some more concrete information about him.
Here's Jeff and Stephanie.
Since Coburger's arrest, sites like Reddit and TikTok have poured over every detail of his life and his possible connection to the victims.
And after Kaylee's father suggested that there may in fact have been a connection between Coburger and his daughter, many people online speculated that Coburger was literally stalking Kaylee and that maybe that was the motive for the murder.
Yeah stuff. One poster speculated that Kaylee or Madison met Coburger at the Mad Greek, the restaurant they worked at downtown, saying, didn't Kaylee and Madison work at a vegan restaurant? Isn't he vegan? And for the record, we've said in the past Mad Greek, where they worked, is a pizza shop, not a vegan restaurant, and the owner has public said there is no record of Coburger ever eating there, but that has not stopped the online rumor mill.
Others also continued the debate about Coburger's possible motive, saying that Ethan and Keiyley were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that maybe Madison and Xana were the real targets since Coburger actually went to their bedroom. Again, so much of this is just speculation.
But through all these posts, one thing is clear. Uninformed theories become facts, and misinformation spreads like wildfire.
Everyone becomes a lawyer. You don't have to prove that he's innocent, you just have to prove that he's not guilty. And so with that mentality, everyone is just looking for every single hole that they can anywhere, whether it's cell phone tower pings that put him put him there thirteen times, but kind of cell phone tower ping from twenty five miles away, which would still put him where he was at home. When the police put up the original request or the identification of the Hyundai, they said it was like twenty ten or to a twenty thirteen model. Then why all of a sudden did they figure out it was a twenty fifteen model and it was actually Brian's And how can an expert get this twenty ten to twenty thirteen classification wrong? Then there's another thing that they're poking holes in around the sheath, And like the touch DNA, it went to a lab in Idaho first and nothing was found apparently, and then it was transferred to a lab in Texas. That's where they found the touch DNA that matched Brian's. And whether or not that's just because it's a better lab, or did police tamper with it during transit frame Brian doing that.
I've never read that that even the sheaf got transferred. Is that officially true?
Or so? That's think with this whole Reddit thing is when you read seventy theories about something and you can find yourself believing every single one. You can't. I can't keep track of honestly, what is real and what is not, and what's confirmed or not. It just all gets jumbled in. So then if you have a bunch of potentially true facts, and you can string them together in any any coordinated effort, you can make yourself believe anything.
It doesn't really matter what's true or not true. It just matters if you get the most up votes.
I guess, yeah, yeah, seriously, if you get the most up votes, or if it's the most sensational of all the facts that I read that day, I'll remember that fact, and then when I read a new fact, I'll compare it to that, and I can string them together and make myself believe Brian's wrongly being held right now.
What do you think happened? He did it, but why and what are the circumstances.
I think he was obsessed with one of them. I don't know which one it was, Whether it's Maddie or Kaylee, I don't know. I think it is a lot simpler, which I think is also why people are trying to grasp for straws with all these other firefetch theories. I think it was obsessed with one of them. I kind of believe maybe one of them at a restaurant they were working at, and then stalk them. And then I don't know what the motive would be that night, because then it gets weird with all the other people in the house. The one thing I will say, just what I keep saying, I think it's simple, But then I'm like, with all those people in the house, how could one person have done it? And then like, was he maybe.
Just a getaway car?
But do you see how I'm spirally from something very simple I just believed, And I can't stay on that very simple fact because then it does just get complicated. When everything first happened, everyone was obsessed with this door dash. Now then we got the victim, then had Brian as the potent, and now everyone's gotten so far down so many rabbit holes. Why have we forgotten about this door dash man? And like it hasn't been a topic of conversation when it feels like if he was there four minutes or seven minutes before everything started, that seems really like tight timing.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. This far reaching and endless public debate where information is twisted and distorted is one of the main reasons Lada County Judge Megan Marshall initially instituted and expanded the gag order surrounding the case. Both Coburger's attorneys and the prosecution support the gag order to protect Coburger's right to a fair trial. Six months after Coburger's arrest, the court's hurt emotion in June by a coalition of media organizations to lift the gag order.
The media coalition was fighting for the non dissemination order to be altered in an effort to be able to report more of the facts of this case.
Wendy Olsen, an attorney representing journalists, argued the gag order leads to rampant speculation and removing it would improve the coverage of the case, adding that there were other tools the legal system could use to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial. This includes moving the trial to a different city or asking potential jurors if they are willing to be impartially in the case. The judge dismissed those ideas complicated, time consuming, and costly. Shannon Gray, an attorney for the Gonsalvest family also pushed the judge to lift the restrictions, saying he should be able to speak for Keiley's family. The judge, however, seemed unlikely to ease the restrictions during the six hour hearing. The media coalition also requested that cameras be allowed in the courtroom for the trial, and argued that media coverage and publicity in and of itself is not prejudicial. However, Cobacker's attorneys pushed back on the request, saying that past descriptions of Coburger published in print as quote cold and like a demon, and video clips of him blankly staring forward in court could prejudice potential jurors against Coburger. Leida County Judge Joe Judge said he would think about the motions and would issue a written order in the days to come. Gag orders, while rare, are often used in high profile cases, like in the Half Bay Moon murder investigation and the jodiariastrial, or any case where the national spotlight burns bright.
The personal investment is interesting. I mean I even see it on comment boards and stuff like that. People are so interested. We had this interest in it from the start before Brian Kolberger's name is associated with the case right because it was this killing in a small town for college students at the precipice of beginning their lives, and that in and of itself, we've created drama around the case before mister Kulberker's name came into it.
Kirk Nurmi was Jodiarius his defense lawyer. In twenty thirteen, she was tried and convicted of murdering her ex boyfriend Travis Alexander. Her trial remains a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when a circus like atmosphere is allowed to develop around a high profile trial. Cheers erupted as.
Soon as look back. Now we're at the ten year anniversary of the area's verdict, and you know, you can see pictures of people crowding the sidewalk between the court buildings just to be there for the verdict.
History is full of high profile murder investigations and trials that turn into public spectacles. The Jodiaria's trial surpassed almost all of them because it was one of the first significant social media events of the social media era. At first, the case received very little attention outside of Arizona, despite the sensational details.
Travis Alexander was found dead in his shower. He was shot in the face, stabbed twenty seven times, and his throat was slit from ear to ear.
Friends of Travis Alexander found his mutilated body in his apartment after he failed to show up to work. It was a gruesome murder scene. Among the evidence police recovered from the site was a digital camera with sexually explicit photos of Arius and Alexander from the day he was murdered. The final shot was of him bleeding profusely in the bathroom. Investigators also found a bloody palm print and DNA belonging to Jodiarius. Later in the summer, Arius was arrested in charge with murder. The first interest in the case only appeared when Jodyarius gave a few jailhouse interviews.
No jury is going to convict me. Why not?
Because I'm innocent and you can mark my words on that one.
No Jerry will convict me.
But even the initial interest following Jodi Aarres's declaration of innocence on TV was minor compared to the current fascination with the University of Idaho murders.
It's a little different than the Coburger situation, and it wasn't quite in the headline the way Colberger was. I mean, you think about Coburger the murder, so his name wasn't associated with it yet, of course, but those murders in Moscow, being in a college down when it was a who done it certainly caught the attention of the nation before any arrests were made. But Coolburgers was right from the start when these bodies were found, the manhunt was underware. The media got onto the man hunt and certainly was there all throughout his apprehension his arrest. There's a huge media presence in this case from the geta.
Because of this intense public interest. Every minor police announcement or court appearance by Coburger is followed, reported on, and heavily scrutinized. This interest, however, could potentially impact Cooberg to a fair trial.
If I were to file a pre trial motion in the area's trial, I would walk into court and walk out like it was John Smith. No one would care. When Colberger files emotion and they have a court hearing, everybody's going to care. And that's the distinctive, and.
That makes it harder because no one likes to do their job under a microscope.
No one likes to do their job under a microscope because it it just becomes more of a production. It alters the court of public opinion.
Right, this unique and intense interest by the media and the public has the potential to alter the jury pool.
Ultimately, all these things are going to be in the headlines, and they are ultimately going to be things that will be of consequence when vordaire happens, when the ultimately begin to sit the jury. So, for example, this motion requesting DNA, right, if I were to followed the similar motion during areas a prospected jury would not have known about that. More than likely in this case that might not be true. And so it's not the microscope so much as is the publicity and how that will infect a potential jury because ultimately, you think about it, think about it, what the rubber meets the road a trial, not in all these different circumstances, right, the rubber meets the road at trial. So when you have publicity engaging from the get go, from before a suspect is identified, opinions for potential jurors begin to form.
It's impossible to fully circumvent those preconceived notions. Is that what you're saying, right.
It can be, And it also raises the prospect of covert jurors. Let's say somebody decides they know Cobird's being framed or they know he's guilty, they could get on that panel and dodge their way into a trial, or if they wanted to be on the panel in hopes of stinking fame. And so that's why I think the difference is so huge, Jeff. But if you think about the dynamics of where the rubber meets the road, that jury, that publicity and Coburger began from the discovery of the murders makes things qualitatively different.
How did you as a public defender and how do you think Coburger's attorneys will combat that? I mean, certainly the jury is not supposed to take that into account, but how can they.
Not, right, And there's no jury there, So there's this massive public and the public to consume the information before they ever become jurors or potential jurors. Right, So you know, there's a lot of things I think that are going on at this point in the case of his attorneys, and because the death penalty is the specter that looms over this case. Really, what his attorneys are doing now are tasked with not only investigating the case and challenging the evidence that the state is bringing forward in their effort to convict mister Colberger of murder. They are looking at investigating his life from conception to the day of his rest so they can create a case for mitigation. And while this is going on, of course, they have to make this do all this, I guess, with the specter of the presumption of guilt in the court of public opinion and trying to fight against that, trying to fight the evidence of the work.
Because Coburger's case, like Jodiarius Is, involves the potential for the death penalty, Coburger's lawyers must work to both build a defense and also an argument against the death penalty if he is convicted. The intense public interest makes defending Coburger challenging.
Ultimately, they're going to be fighting this presumption of guilt, of course, and they're going to want to do everything they can to collect all the evidence. You know, we see that they're going after the DNA. They believe the DNA might be exploratory means favorable to their clients. So they're going to go after those things, and they're going to go after other things, like in terms of building a case for life, They're going to go after school records, They're going to go after everything in his past that might be help shed some light on if in fact he did commit this case, why a jury should grant him wife. So there's really two prongs that are going on here, and it certainly made much more difficult without media spector because anybody that could maybe be helpful to mister Colberger probably too excited about coming forward because of that media spector being involved in the case. Because you know, a death penalty case is something that automatically goes up to the US Supreme Court if a sentence of death is imposed, they are going to need to be very vigilant in the defense they provide mister Colberger. And that is on two fronts, both for life and for confronting the evidence. Presenting a defense in a case like this, in the death penalty case is not a job for the timid. I mean, you have to go forward in the face of all this vitriol against your client and go forward and seek out that exculpatory information, So they're going to do that. We've seen that they are, you know, in terms of the preliminary hearing, they or seeking the surviving roommates testimony.
By the time Jody Arius went to trial, four years after murdering Travis Alexander, interest in the case had grown, but it exploded once the jerry was selected and the trial began.
When Jody Arius finally reached trial in twenty thirteen, it was a case that had been going on for years and the publicity was comparatively small before the trial. People tend to think about her trial as being a huge sensation, and it was, but it wasn't a huge sensation really until it began. He had given those interviews with ABC, Inside Editions, et cetera. The Oldburger case is a media sensation from the start. So ultimately, when they get to the point is that they are picking the jury, it's not going to be whether or not they the jury has heard anything about the case. Of the potential jury numbers have hurt anything about the case. It's whether they formed judgments about the case that cannot be altered. There are people out there now who have heard the case, have seen what they've seen and believe that he is guilty. There might be people that believe that he is longly charged. And what you need to do when you're searching out a jury to find people that are not formally held in the belief and is that are open to hearing the evidence. Because right now, let's say that the evidence of the public knows is you know, just a scant portion of what is known to the police, the authilities, and presumably the defense attorneys.
That's an interesting point that we think we know everything and we know just probably a fraction, is what you're saying.
Yeah, I would say generally speaking, the public probably now is about ten percent of the actual evidence it's really going on in the case.
Let's stop here for another break. With so much of the information and evidence still yet to be made public, the Idaho judicial system is trying to combat what will likely be a massive cultural event.
When Colberger goes to trial. It is going to be a lot like the Area's trial when it became more popular in the public. Zite, guys, I mean, if cameras are allowed in the courtroom, obviously we are going to see every bit of movement in the courtroom. We're going to see everything that surrounds the trial outside of the trial. You know, we're going to see packed courtrooms, We're going to see people standing outside. I think when you, mister Kolberger did his case reach trial, you're going to see that kind of mentality, that kind of It becomes a trial in the courtroom as best as you can, but it becomes a cultural event as well.
Jodiaris was ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, but many legal analysts believe the circus surrounding the trial impacted the prosecution's ability to secure the death penalty.
As someone who's been in it and has now removed from it, is that okay you think? Or is that an unhealthy interest that we as a society have.
It's hard to say, but I hate to see trials become sporting events, right, and justice has to prevail more than more than anything, right, And we just you know, we see people that offer testimonies under scrutiny, judges under scrutiny for having done nothing. It becomes closer to public stoning, doesn't it. When we expose and attack people for their involvement in these cases.
Here again, Jeff and.
Stephanie Jody Aaris's trial started on December tenth, twenty twelve, and in the scheme of things, that was the infancy stage of social media. Sure, read It and Twitter existed, but people didn't use them like they do today.
Makes you wonder what the online community would have done to that case if it happened today.
And of course Jody Arius was found guilty for murder, but there really was this pitchfork mentality back then, and it probably would have been much more intense today. In twenty twenty three.
With so much at stake, including Coburger's right to a fair trial, the presiding judge during Coburger's hearings appeared unwilling to remove the gag order. However, nearly seven months after Coburger was arrested, and in response to the motion to ease the gag order, Judge Joe Judge did agree to loosen the non dissemination order.
Prosecution and defense attorneys can now speak on some matters related to the case.
The families of the four victims are still allowed to speak publicly, but their lawyers remain barred from top Reddit, along with several other social media websites, has tried to clean up some of the most outrageous group chats. The subreddit Brian Coberger's Girls, which was known for discussions about Coburger's skincare routine and fawning posts about how hot the twenty eight year old is, was banned for repeatedly violating Reddit's code of conduct. Despite this small change, millions of true grime enthusiasts and would be crime solvers continue to dissect and debate every aspect of the murders on social media and in public forums across the country. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Mascer is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Jeff Shane, Connor Powell, Chris Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Massacre is a production of iHeart Radio and Katie's Studios. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I'm Diana. You may know as Body Moving, My Friend and I John Green were featured in the Netflix documentary Don't f with Cats. On our new podcast, True Crimes of John and Deiana were turning our online investigative skills to some of the most unexplained, unsolved, and most ignored cases.
Please say.
Thirty three year old bride Again was shot dead, gunned down in front of his two year old daughter.
Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted attack.
It appears to be an execution style of assassination.
This is very active, so we have to be careful.
I've heard that there's a house and have some bodies in the basement.
I knew.
I just knew something was wrong.
Maybe there's something more sinister at play than just one young girl going missing.
If you know something, heard something, Please it's never too late to.
Do the right thing.
This is True Crimes with John and Deianna, the production.
Of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Justice is something that takes different shapes or formed.