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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 that an arrest had been made. 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 Koberger 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 KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell. This morning, authorities putting a face to the fear. On Thursday, January 5th, 2023, University of Idaho murder suspect Brian Kobriger made his first appearance in Idaho since his arrest. The day before, the 28-year-old criminology PhD student was extradited from his hometown in Albertsville, Pennsylvania.
Count two alleges that you committed the felony offense of murder in the first degree. Count three, a murder in the first degree. Count four, a murder in the first degree. Count five, a murder in the first degree.
After the four charges of first-degree murder were read, Koberger, 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 are found guilty, is up to death and imprisonment for life. Do you understand? Yes, ma'am.
Coburger's defense attorney, Ann Taylor, requested bail for her client. Lata County Magistrate, Megan Marshall, rejected the request. Coburger was led away to his prison cell. But who is Brian Coburger? 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 professed to want a career catching criminals become one?
When police stormed Brian Koberger's family home in the early hours of December 30th, the sleepy community of Indian Mountain Lake Estates in Albertsville, Pennsylvania became the epicenter of the investigation into the murders of Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
An Indian Mountain lake is billed as a Pocono resort community, and it'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 Devine speaking to producer Jeff Shane.
Rod Devine is a nationally known licensed private detective. His firm is Devine Intervention Detective Services and has offices in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is about 40 minutes from Brian Koberger's parents' home.
They get to build themselves as a Pocono resort, but it's not, you know, we're not talking about a strongly wooded area. If you probably would go into Indian Mountain 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 40 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 in 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 Indian Mountain Lake is. If you use your terminology, it's very normal.
It's a single dwelling. It's, you know, it's a regular neighborhood. 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 based on the pictures, it just looks like every other house in that 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 Kohlbergers 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 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 very normal. And I guess if we're looking for normalcy, these guys meet that if you look 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 decades.
close to 30 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 until 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 going to mug you or I'm going to rape you or I'm going to kill you. You just don't know.
If Brian Coburger 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. 28-year-old Brian Coburger is a criminology student getting his PhD at Washington State University, which is about 15 to 20 minutes from Moscow in Idaho. We also know that Brian Coburger drives a white Hyundai Elantra, which is potentially a key piece of evidence.
If in fact what Brian Koberger 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 this is 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 Kobergers 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 Koberger and his two sisters attended school.
According to the people we spoke to, the Kohlbergers 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 100 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, you know, 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 went 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 much
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 police academy kind of thing for him. 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 Coburger's high school. She remembers him well because of the passion Coburger had for becoming a police officer.
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 Kohlberger 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 interested in doing as a career. However, even though he was a leader in the class, sometimes leaders don't always get the respect that they should. At some point in Kohlberger's junior year, there was an incident with other students.
says she can't elaborate about this 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 issue,
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, you know, this is not 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 for you to be in because it's someone's dream. It's horrible. 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 that 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 11th 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 have 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. 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 switched or any of that? It happened, but it didn't happen a lot, particularly in programs like protective services and health occupations, because those kids were
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, your senior year. That's it. You're done.
I see. So is that the type of infraction that kids would get pulled for, like behavior or cheating or drugs or drinking? What are the types of infractions that would cause that?
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 protective services and health. You know, the level of expectation for behavior is held to a much higher standard there. But in the other programs, if it's a drug offense, then you're just...
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, and you come back. But that kind of thing is not an option in a program like Protective 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 what he wanted to become, how do you wrap your head around that? It's interesting because ultimately what
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, but 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.
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Friends say it was around the time of his dismissal from the law enforcement vocation program that Koberger lost weight and his personality changed. I am just an absolute shocker. Casey Arntz was two years ahead of Koberger in high school. She and her brother Thomas were friends with him. But in high school, dramatic changes washed over Koberger, according to several friends.
She says Koberger went from being overweight to rail thin, and both Casey and Thomas say they remember Koberger as a bully. Brian Koberger'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. Koberger also took up boxing and increasingly styled himself as a dominant alpha male. Another friend, Rich Pasqua, knew the Koberger family and worked with Koberger 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, Pasqua 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, Koberger would graduate high school in 2013, finishing remotely online. At some point, he went to rehab and got clean.
Koberger began taking college classes in psychology and criminal justice at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. He graduated from DeSales with both an undergraduate and a master's degree. Michelle Bolger, a professor at DeSales, described Koberger as a great writer and a brilliant student. She would later recommend him for a Ph.D. program.
Others say he was intelligent and nearly obsessive about criminology. But Koberger was also described as creepy by others in the community. Two years ago, a man he believes was Koberger used to act so creepy to female customers, he had to tell them to stop. That Koberger 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, Steph, I think hindsight is 20-20 in a case like this. You know, all the behavior that Brian exhibited at the time,
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 at 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 Elantra with his dad and road tripped across the country. Is that possible? Here's reporter Anjanette 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 is 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 him? 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 crime.
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.
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If Brian Koberger 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 Koberger at WSU. He seemed very comfortable around other people. He was fairly quick to offer his opinion and thoughts, and he was always participating fairly eagerly in classroom discussions.
But Roberts also said Kohlberger had an aura of academic arrogance about him. He would describe things in the most complicated way. Roberts also said Kohlberger liked to brag about his dating life. At one point he just idly mentioned, you know, I can go down to a ball or a club and just have pretty much any lady I want. Other classmates said Kohlberger made inappropriate comments about the LGBTQ community and was often condescending towards women.
One female doctoral student accused Koberger of mansplaining during a particularly heated argument. As part of his PhD program, Koberger was a teaching assistant in Washington State University's Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.
When he came into class, he was very, you know, not super mentally present. He would stand up at the front, look at the ground. Hayden Stinchfield said Koberger was disliked by undergraduates because of his difficult grading. But that changed in November of 2022. About a month before winter break, when like the murders happened, he started grading everybody just to 100s.
Like, you pretty much, if you turned something in, you were getting high marks. 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, Kohlberger was fired from his teaching assistant position after repeated conduct of unprofessional behavior. That behavior included fighting with a 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 Instagram at kt underscore studios.
The Idaho Massacre is produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, Connor Powell, Chris Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and me, Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Twa. Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Massacre is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I'm Deanna, who you may know as Body Movin'. 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 Deanna, we're turning our online investigative skills to some of the most unexplained, unsolved, and most ignored cases. ♪
Police say 33-year-old Breidigan 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 assassination. This is very active, so we have to be careful. I've heard that there's a house that has 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 Deanna. The production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Justice is something that takes different shapes or forms.
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