Six days after his arrest, Bryan Kohberger makes his first court appearance. How did a little known, mild mannered, graduate student become the only criminal suspect in a quadruple homicide? What in his background could explain his actions?
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Do you remember where you were when you found out about the arrest.
I remember hearing from somebody who's pretty reliable that something was coming soon, and I said, well, what's soon? And the person said, I think something's coming in about three weeks. And then two days later they announced they're having a press conference.
Is that standard, by the way to do that.
This was a case that garnered international attention, so I think that they knew that they had to let the public know as quickly as they could. Get arrested in me, so we get news that there's going to be a press conference, and we thought, they're not having a press conference unless they've got something major to talk about. So we just started scouring around and I started texting people who I thought would know, and I got a picture back of a guy named Brian Coburger at Washington State University, and I thought to myself, who's this. This is a PhD student in criminology. This is the guy, So it was pretty stunning.
This is the Idaho Massacre a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio, Episode two, The Face of Fear. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell.
This morning authorities putting a face to the fear.
On Thursday, January fifth, twenty twenty three, University of Idaho murder suspect Brian Coberger made his first appearance in Idaho since his arrest the day before. The twenty eight year old criminology PhD student was extradited from his hometown in Albertsville, Pennsylvania.
How Too, alleged that you committed the felony offs of murder in the first degree calprie a murder in the first degree, cow four a murder in the first degree, Colpi a murderer in the first degree.
After the four charges of first degree murder were read, Coburger, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and a vacant stare, spoke only to confirm he understood the charges.
The maximum penalty for this offense, if you plead guilty or found guilty, is up to death and imprisonment for life.
Do you understand?
Coberger's defense attorney, Anne Taylor, requested bail for her client. Leida County Magistrate Megan Marshall rejected the request. Coburger was led away to his prison cell. But who is Brian Coberger? How did a little known, mild mannered graduate student become the only criminal suspect in a quadruple homicide? And if he is the murderer, why would someone who profess to want a career catching criminals become one. When police storm Brian Coberger's family home in the early hours of December thirtieth, the sleepy community of Indian Mountain Lake Estates in Albertsville, Pennsylvania, became the epicenter of the investigation into the murders of Kaihlei Gonsalvus, Madison Mogan, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan chapin An.
Indian Mountain Lake is billed as a Pocoo resort community, and that's also a private gated community. And not all private communities in the Poconos are gated, but all gated communities are private, if that makes sense.
That's Rod Divine speaking to producer Jeff Shane. Rod Divine is a nationally known licensed private detective. His firm is Divine Intervention Detective Services and has offices in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is about forty minutes from Brian Coberger's parents'.
Home build themselves as a Polkado resort.
But it's not you know, we're not talking about a strongly wooded area there. If you probably would go into in the Amount Lake, you would find medium to upper middle class people in neighborhoods that have homes not unlike any other neighborhood.
It sounds like what you're saying is it's just pretty normal, like it's a standard neighborhood.
It's a standard neighborhood, absolutely, And if you go another forty minutes to an hour, you're going to get to those places where you probably have envisioned in your mind that are cabins that are in the woods and your next neighbor over or between you and a bunch.
Of trees and things like that.
That's very real, you know, And that's not too far from where this in the Amount Lake is, and you use your terminology, and it's very normal. It's a single dwelling, it's you know, it's a regular neighborhood.
And it's not deep in a rural wooded area.
Is there anything about it that stands out or that would make it that you would walk past it and be like, you know what I mean, Like it just in the Based on the picture, it just looks like every other house in the neighborhood.
It is it is.
You wouldn't look twice about it if you're walking in that community, because it's one of many the same.
There's nothing that stands out about it.
According to public documents, the Coburgers moved to Pennsylvania from New York.
I grew up in New Jersey myself, and I was born in Brooklyn, So it's not unusual to see people from New York and New Jersey gravitate you to the Pocono area. I've got a home currently in the Poconos, and a lot of my neighbors are New York City cops, ex New York City cops.
You know, there's a lot of firemen.
And things like that. So that's a that's very normal, And I guess if we're looking for normal normalcy, these guys meet that.
If you look at.
Pay on paper, I mean, they've got mom and dad, got three kids. Mom and dad are from New York, got a house up in the Poconos. You know, it seems like they've lived up there for close to thirty years. If you know, on paper, these guys are very quote unquote normal from what I've seen of this guy, and he doesn't seem a little off, and so you start hearing about the backstory, you know, and that is where sometimes you have to stand back and look at things a little bit closer, because it's a lot easier to look at someone after you've got a story and say, yeah, he seems a little bit off.
You know.
There's no one that wears that hat that says, you know, I'm I'm gonna mug you, or I'm gonna rape you, or I'm gonna kill you.
You just don't know.
If Brian Coberger is the killer behind the gruesome Idaho murders. He is anything but normal, but what in his background could explain his actions? Here's Jeff and Stephanie.
Twenty eight year old Brian Coburger is a criminology student getting his PhD at Washington State University, which is about fifteen to twenty minutes from Moscow in Idaho. We also know that Brian Coberger drives a white Hyundai Elantra, which is potentially a key piece.
Of evidence if in fact, what Brian Coburger is accused of turns out to be true. He is the scariest person alive, but it's almost as though he would be the real life Dexter. Dexter is this fictitious character from a scripted series where this very smart and fairly functional guy turns out to actually be the serial killer. It's also like that scripted series on Netflix called You, where the killer is just this ordinary guy, some unexpected murderer who works at a bookshop. But I guess does not pretend and he is not a character. He's not wearing a Halloween mask and some black cloak over himself like you would see in a scary movie. This is just an unassuming PhD student who lives allegedly a few miles away from the victims.
For years, the Coburger has lived in Effort, Pennsylvania, a small town near where Brian was arrested. Both his parents, Michael and Marianne, worked for the Pleasant Valley School District, the same one where Brian would attend high school. This is the same school district where Coburger and his two sisters attended school.
According to the people we spoke to, the Coburgers lived a very air quotes normal middle class life and from a young age. Friends say that Brian was a bit shy, that he was very awkward, but that he desperately wanted to be an army ranger or a police officer.
He was pretty normal.
He was definitely heavier set, and that caused issues in school.
As a young kid, Coburger was overweight and was often bullied. Then he lost one hundred pounds his senior year in high school. But it wasn't only his appearance that changed. His demeanor did as well. The dramatic change, according to people who knew Brian Coburger, stems from his time in the law enforcement vocational program in high school.
It's interesting because when he was being enrolled in our program, we were told that this was all he wanted, protective services. You know, that this was something that he had been dreaming of for a long time, that he had been working toward for a long time. And so to find out that kind of want to awry to the degree that it did was very surprising, to be honest. So however, with that said, after he had been enrolled, you know, there were some circumstances that led us to believe that maybe there were going to be some difficulties in Brian's life that weren't going to be weren't going to contribute to him having an easy time of it, you know, like just it wasn't going to be just ending up in the UH police academy kind of thing for him. It was it was going to be a little bit more of a challenge for him to get.
There is a former school administrator who oversaw student discipline and mental health at Brian Coberger's high school. She remembers him well because of the passion Coburger had for becoming a police But the.
Reason that I remember his application was because of the way the guidance counselor just really played it up how it was, you know, all he wanted.
However, she says, Coburger struggled in the law enforcement program.
He was a leader in his class, he absolutely was. He took the class extremely seriously, and so in that regard, it was evident that that was really something he was very he was very interested in doing as a career. However, you know, he was a leader in the class. Now that sometimes leaders don't always get the respect that they should.
At some point in Colberger's junior year there was an incident with other students, so she can't elaborate about the specific incident because of legal reasons. Here's speaking with Jeff Shane.
Protective Services and health Occupations were the only two programs in our school where clearances were required to be as a student to be in those programs, so you were judged a little bit more carefully in those programs. Therefore, if you have an infraction that could potentially, as an adult in the field, be a big employment issue for you, then we would very seriously look at removing you from the program. So a situation occurred where a complaint was made and the teacher reported it to me and said, this is something we can have. An investigation needed to be conducted. Other students were interviewed, Brian was interviewed, and you know, there comes a time when decisions have to be made, whether it's the decision the student wants or not, it.
Must be such a tough position. It's horrible because it's you know, it's someone's dream.
It's horrible. Yeah, yeah, it is. And especially because by virtue of what I do with special education and guidance, Like I said, I'm all about second chances, and I recognize that these are still kids. But because of these two programs. We don't have a whole lot of latitude there and ability for forgiveness. However, with this said, and as you may know, it doesn't mean that you can't transition into another program that doesn't have the requirement of clearances. He was removed from protective Services and transitioned into HVAC and then at the end of that eleventh grade years when he decided not to return as a senior, do.
You remember what he was feeling like when that transition happened.
I believe he was going through other stuff that was not a part of what was happening at our school. So my feeling was that he was defeated, you know, because it's the only thing you ever wanted in life, and you had it, and now that's falling through. But then something else that's going on in your life that's not even relevant to that is also causing angst, and so it's just I think it was just a lot of defeat.
You wouldn't describe it as angry or upset. It was more just like he was sad.
Yeah, yep, I don't think that maybe he necessarily grasped the depth and breadth of the issue at hand, So I think there was frustration as to not really understanding. I don't understand what the problem is. This is not a big deal or you know, this didn't happen. It wasn't like a like an anger, like an explosive anger or anything at all like that. It was just like seriously kind of thing, do you know what I mean?
Did this happen a lot where students had to be pulled or sweached or any and.
Last it happened, But it didn't happen a lot, particularly in programs like protective services and health occupations because those kids really had to fight to get into those programs so to speak, because there's such a long waiting list, and if you're chosen, you know, not to screw it up, because if you screw it up, you don't get a second chance kind of thing. You know, if you if you're removed in your in your sophomore year or whatever, you don't get to come back again in your junior year or.
Your senior year. That's it.
You're done.
I see. So is that is that the type of infraction that kids would get pulled for, like behavior or cheating or drugs or like drinking or is that like what are the types of infractions that would cause.
To be removed from a program. Yeah, to be removed from a program, it has to be pretty severe. Again, the bar is pretty high when it comes to predicted services in health. You know that the level of expectation for behavior is held to a much higher standard there. But in the other programs, if it's if it's a drug offense, then you're just you know, you're just out if it's something that's really egregious. Otherwise we let law enforcement handle it. You get suspended, you do your time when you come back. But that kind of I think it's not an option in a program like productive services because again, in the field, you wouldn't be able to do that and still get your job back.
Knowing what allegedly we know now about what he did versus like what he wanted to become.
How do you wrap your head around that.
It's interesting because ultimately, and I have to be careful what I say, but like, ultimately, what had him removed from the program when I look back on it now makes sense And I don't know, and that probably isn't clear for you at all, But the fact that he wanted law enforcement more than anything else in the world. If you look at it from just that perspective alone, not knowing what I know, then yeah, you'd be like, I can't. I'm so shocked, and in that respect, I am. But then I know another little piece, which is the piece that occurred at the school, and so then I'm like, oh, and see that makes sense. When I heard about the murders, it was actually the school guidance counselor that said did you hear? And I'm like what? But she said to me, did you hear about Brian? And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. She said, turn on the news.
And then I was like, oh my god.
But with that said, I was shocked, but it made sense.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. Friends say it was around the time of his dismissal from the law enforcement vocation program that Coberger lost weight and his personality changed. I am just an absolute shocker.
Now.
Casey Arntce was two years ahead of Coburger in high school. She and her brother Thomas were friends with him, but in.
High school, dramatic changes washed over Coburger.
According to several friends.
She says Coburger went from being overweight to rail Finn and both Casey and Thomas say they remember Coburger as a bully.
Brian Coberger's childhood friend, Thomas, speaking to ABC News describing the Idaho murder suspect as mean in high school, saying Brian was eager to be seen as dominant.
He would just like put me in.
He would like grapple me and like put me in headlocks and arm bars and stuff like that.
Coburger also took up boxing and increasingly styled himself as a dominant alpha male. Another friend, rich Pasquad, knew the Coburger family and worked with Hoburger at a pizza shop.
I met him through some friends and they told me that he was a little weird and he was a little socially awkward, I guess you could say, but he wasn't a bad guy.
However, Pascual also offered an explanation for the sudden weight loss and dramatic personality change.
He did use drugs. That's how I really know him too. He was a big heroin addict, and so was I. I got six years clean. Now I work in treatment and everything, but back then I was using and so that's how I know for a fact he was using I've Got High with him a couple times.
After being kicked out of the Law Enforcement Vocation program and opting not to return to the HVAC program after his junior year, Coburger would graduate high school in twenty thirteen, finishing remotely online. At some point he went to rehab and got clean. Coburger began taking college classes in psychology and criminal justice at to Sales University in Pennsylvania. He graduated from to Sales with both an undergraduate and a master's degree. Michelle Bulger, a professor at to Sales, described Coburger as a great writer and a brilliant student. She would later recommend him for a PhD program. Others say he was intelligent and nearly obsessive about criminology, but Coberger was also described as creepy by others in the community.
Two years ago, a man he believes was Coburger used to act so creepy to female customers he had to tell him to stop that.
Coburger was asking.
People like where they lived and who they lived with if they were there alone, just like very very red flag questions.
Here again, Stephanie and Jeff, I.
Think That's one of the scarier parts about this case is the notion of someone being creepy. That's such a wide term. It's the person sitting next to you on an airplane or the person who moves into the apartment across the hall. We have to listen to our gut.
Yeah, stuff, I think hindsight is twenty twenty in a case like this. You know, all the behavior that Brian exhibited at the time might have not meant anything, But now that we know what he's being accused of doing, we can kind of recontextualize it in our heads and it kind of fits together like a puzzle to potentially something much more nefarious. But does all of that a killer make We're not judging jury. It's not up for us to decide. What we're trying to do is just break down the facts and let you, the listeners, come to your own conclusions.
What if he is innocent, I mean, he had this point says that he is he is innocent, and he claims that he had nothing to do with this. And if that's the case, then this person is really being tried in the press, and.
Is that justice?
Is that okay? But how does this ordinary guy from the Poconos in New York. Make a leap from being a student to a mass murderer. That is a huge jump. And again he wrapped up his school session, hopped in his white Lantra with his dad and road tripped across the country.
Is that possible? Here's reporter an jette Levy of the Law and Crime Network.
I think given the circumstances of this case, you have to kind of look at it and look at whether or not he was studying these things. If he's indeed the guy, if he's indeed factually guilty, and he is the person who committed these crimes. I'm not talking about the legal standard. I think you have to kind of look at it and say, what was going on with them? Why was he studying this? Was this part of some type of motivation? What was his endgame here? I think that we also have to just look at it through another lens, too, like who is this guy? He is somebody who reportedly had addiction problems in high school. He had used heroin from everything we've learned through our reporting. He's also somebody who apparently had a hard time getting dates and you know, really having close relationships with people. It sounds like he clashed with some of the people he was friends with when he was in high school. So I think there are a number of ways we have to look at this. If he's ultimately convicted, it could, you know, a lot of his background could become more relevant. Let's say that this is something he was planning for a couple of years. If he's indeed the guy and he was planning this, maybe there's something there. Maybe this is why he was doing it, you know, maybe this is why he was studying criminology and looking at these behaviors. But everything we learned was too that he said he wanted to do something like, you know, help rural police departments and stuff like that. So I don't know how studying serial killers or you know, how that would factor into I want to be a mass killer. I don't know how that would factor into that. Maybe he truly did want to do work to help small rural police departments, but I think we'll have to wait and see if any of this becomes relevant.
Let's stop here for another break. If Brian Colberger was once a shy and awkward kid by the time he arrived in Pullman, Washington for his PhD studies. He was a totally different man. Benjamin Roberts took several classes with Coburger at WSU.
He seemed very comfortable around all. He was fairly quick to offer his opinion and thoughts, and he was always participating fairy eagerly in classroom discussions.
But Roberts also said Coburger had an aura of academic arrogance about him. He would describe things in the most complicated way. Roberts also said Colberger liked to brag about his dating life.
At one point, he just idly mentioned, you know, I can go down to a bowl or a club and just have pretty much any lady I want.
Other classmates said Coburger made inappropriate comments about the LGBTQ community and was often condescending towards women. One female doctoral student accused Coburger of man's planning during a particularly heated argument. As part of his pH d program, Coburger was a teaching assistant in Washington State University's Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.
When he came into class, he was very super mentally present. He would stand up the front look at the ground.
Hayden Stinchfield said Coberger was disliked by undergraduates because of his difficult grading, but that changed in November of twenty twenty two.
About a month before winter break, when the murders happened. He started grading everybody just one hundreds, like you pretty much have you turned something in? You were getting high marked, and he stopped leaving notes. It was just, you know, he seemed preoccupied, is what I would have said at the time, And now obviously he seems like he was probably pretty preoccupied.
In early December, a few weeks before his arrest, Coburger was fired from his teaching assistant position after repeated conduct of unprofessional behavior. That behavior included fighting with the university professor and allegations he followed one female student to her car. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instea at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masacer 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 Masacre is a production of iHeart Radio and Kat's Studios. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Diana.
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