The Days After Death
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Investigators believe Koberger killed Kaley Goncalves, Madison Mogan, Zainer Kurnodal and Ethan Chapin inside of a rented home not far from the University of Idaho campus. At the time of the murders, Koberger was studying at Washington State University, which is just a few miles away from the crime scene.

Outside Kohlberger's apartment in Pullman, Washington, detectives were moving boxes and bags from the apartment. They just kept coming out with more and more stuff and loading it into evidence vans. But in that list of what they brought out, they do not list knife in that evidence list. This is The Idaho Massacre, a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Episode 5, The Days After Death.

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker, Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell. When Brian Kohlberger moved to Pullman, Washington in early July of 2022 for his Ph.D. program, he arrived on campus with his dad driving a 2015 white Hyundai Elantra.

Within months of arriving on campus, Kohlberger was pulled over by Washington State University Police. Hello. I am Officer Loingis. Stop being audio and video recorded. I think you know why I stopped you. As the officer approached the driver's side window, the 28-year-old criminology student respectfully greeted her. Kohlberger explained he was originally from a rural area in Pennsylvania and was new to the area. He said he accidentally got caught in the intersection before turning left on a red light.

During the nine-and-a-half-minute interaction, Kobricker politely asked the female officer to explain Washington state's traffic laws before he apologized for asking too many questions. Do you have your license on you? Yep. Do you have the registration and insurance?

I'm just going to get this out for you. Okay. The traffic stop was unremarkable, and Coburger was let off with a warning. But during the brief exchange, which took place one month before the murders, the officer commented that Brian Coburger's vehicle registration was set to expire in a few months. Let's see.

Expires November 22nd, 2022. For the next month, Koberger's white 2015 Elantra remained registered in his home state of Pennsylvania. But five days after the gruesome murders, Koberger did something he hadn't done for months.

He changed his registration from Pennsylvania to Washington and received new license plates. Was this simply a coincidence? A last-minute chore that needed to be completed, but had escaped Koberger's mind during his first and very busy fall semester? Or was this one of the many actions Koberger took to try to cover his tracks after killing the four University of Idaho students? Here's Stephanie and Jeff.

It was roughly seven weeks from the time Kaylee, Madison, Zanna and Ethan were killed to the time Brian Koberger was arrested.

To me, the biggest question in this case is obviously why did Koberger, if in fact he is guilty, commit this crime? And maybe asking ourselves why is an impossible question. It's kind of applying reason to an irrational situation. Whoever did this is obviously a monster, and we're clearly not going to be able to assign logic to that person. The other big question I have is what was Koberger doing in the days and weeks leading up to the murders?

Exactly. And there are so many unanswered questions at this point. But thanks to the probable cause affidavit, we do know some of the movements and actions of Kohlberger. Brian Kohlberger's cell phone is at the center of the prosecution's case against the 28-year-old. In the days and hours before and after the killings, investigators say Kohlberger's cell phone use paints a disturbing picture of a killer stalking his victims and returning to the scene of the crime.

Investigators say they believe the murders took place between 4 and 4.25 a.m. According to cell phone data, Koberger's phone was connected to the cellular network near his apartment in Pullman, Washington at 4.42 a.m. on the morning of the murders. His phone disappeared from the network and was switched off between 2.47 a.m. and 4.48 a.m. on the morning of the murders.

Police say in the probable cause affidavit that this is, quote, consistent with Koberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide. Here's reporter Chris Bargo. At 2.42 in the morning, Brian Koberger's cell phone is recorded as sort of being on the network in Pullman, Washington, where his dormitory is on Washington State University campus. Then a few minutes later, it goes off the network and is disconnected.

From that point on, there's just counts of people seeing his white Hyundai Elantra. So his white Hyundai Elantra is seen leaving Pullman shortly after that, and then around 3:30 it's seen in Moscow. Now the direct route from Pullman to Moscow is about 15 minutes tops, and this is late at night so there's not going to be any traffic. So it's assumed he took some sort of way that would have gone around that sort of main road. He would either went up north or he went down south. It took back roads to sort of get there. Because the alleged killer is driving

police believe from Pullman to Moscow. If it is indeed Brian, that would suggest that it was targeted because that's a very specific target. That's a very specific house he's going to. At 4:48 a.m., Kohlberger's phone comes back online and pings a tower just south of Moscow. But police say Kohlberger did not head straight home. Instead, he drove a backroads route, which was longer and more remote.

That area that he drove south to where he, the road sort of goes down south about 10 or 20 miles and then it turns back up into a U. That area at the bottom is just mountains and forests. He arrives home at 5:30 in the morning where the WSU campus surveillance video captures his white Elantra returning home. A few hours later, Koberger's phone is back on the move. In a particularly chilling move, Koberger's phone pings a tower near the King Road house.

Brian Kober's cell phone allegedly shows him here at 9.12 a.m. and staying for about 10 minutes. Surveillance video also shows a white sedan driving past the scene of the murders around 9 in the morning. Police have yet to be called to the gruesome murder scene. Stephanie and Jeff.

It's the oldest cliche in criminal history: the killer always returns to the scene of the crime. Well, actually, Steph, it's not true for most killers. Many serial killers do actually return to the scene of the crime, particularly ones who are compulsive or obsess over their victims. For example, Gary Ridgway, who was known as the Green River Killer and convicted of 49 murders, regularly returned to the spots he dumped his victims' bodies.

Also, the Son of Sam killer, David Berkowitz, he told the FBI that on nights he couldn't find a victim, he would just go back to the scene of previous kills and masturbate. That's so sick. I mean, think about it. Returning to the scene of the crime is usually part of a pattern with killers who are extremely confident and pride themselves on being kind of untouchable by law enforcement and basically smarter than everybody else. Does that sound like Koberger to you?

Here's Jeff speaking with Adam Wendt. I'm not a criminology student, but I've seen enough law in order to know like your cell phone is how people track you. And he's like dumb enough to bring the phone or turn it on on the way home. Like he didn't even get all the way home. What do you make of his lack of good decisions? We have a wonderful idiom in English for his behavior. And the idiom is a little bit of knowledge is deadly.

Adam Want is a digital forensics expert and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He spoke to producer Jeff Shane about how a cell phone can be used to establish Kohlberger's actions and whereabouts in the immediate hours surrounding the killings. I think in this specific case, the little bit of knowledge he had really hurt him.

That little bit of knowledge was if I bring my cell phone to the scene of the crime, I could be identified as being there with my cell phone. And he was right. If he brought his cell phone there while it was on, we would have much quicker figured out who he was and had been able to arrest him. But what he did was smart to him. He turned off his phone beforehand. He turned it back on afterwards.

And if we never identified him as a possible suspect, we may never have figured out it was actually him because he turned off his phone. But once we realize he's a potential suspect, and once we see he turned his phone off right before that period of time, turned it back on shortly after that period of time,

That's what we call an overt action that he took that the jury could look at to determine guilt.

So ultimately, what he did to protect himself because he didn't understand these issues fully actually might be one of the most important pieces of information that's used to convict him. Because it looks suspicious that his phone turns off for this window of time and then turns back on on the border between these two towns?

Some people might say it looks suspicious that his phone turned off and then back on again. I go beyond that. It's not just suspicious.

He took an action that was recorded on his phone. His phone would have recorded him turning it off and recorded where he was and the fact that he turned it off and then where he was and the fact that he turned it back on again. And the fact that he took the time to turn off his phone shortly before the murders and turn it right back on shortly after the murders was

certainly shines a spotlight on him that's going to be very hard to reboot. He did not turn his phone off at all when he drove back or any of the other times that he had been there. Let's face it, a stable, emotionally mature, sane person is not going to go kill a house full of people. In this particular case, if the suspect is the murderer, then he's probably not completely sane and stable.

And things that he did, good or bad, are going to come up in the trial and come up in evidence. And a lot of that evidence is going to be used by the jury to figure out if he's guilty or not. Did Kohlberger return to the house to try and gather evidence such as the knife sheath that he allegedly left in the house? Or did he return to relive the murders like other overconfident killers? Or to admire what he'd done? Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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After revisiting the crime scene and returning home, Brian Koberger's day was far from over. According to the probable cause affidavit, Koberger's cell phone data shows he drove south from Pullman, Washington to Lewiston, Idaho. The 50-minute drive was just the beginning of a day of strange movements following the murders. At 12.46 p.m., Koberger arrives at an Albertsons grocery store in Lewiston.

Surveillance video at 12:49 PM shows Koberger walking through the store and purchasing unknown items at the checkout. He leaves about 15 minutes later. Here again, Jeff and Stephanie.

So why does Brian Koberger make the long drive and go to Lewiston, Idaho for some groceries? Pullman has stores like Safeway and Walmart. In fact, so does nearby Moscow. It also has a Safeway, a Walmart and a Target and a Dollar Tree. And what does he need from the grocery store in Lewiston that he can't get in Pullman or Moscow?

You know what this reminds me of is Angela Wagner, who, along with her husband and two sons, murdered eight members of the Rodin family in 2016. When planning the murders, she drove hours away from her house in Pike County to get supplies for the murders. She thought she was somehow outsmarting detectives by going far away, but thanks to very trusty surveillance footage, they caught her red-handed. Could Koberger have been buying something like bleach or other cleaning supplies he didn't want cops seeing and somehow thought buying it far away from where he lived or where the murders took place would throw them off?

Also, Lewiston is located at the confluence of the Snake River and the Clearwater River. So if he was trying to maybe dispose of a murder weapon like a knife, these big rivers would kind of be an ideal spot. According to the police affidavit, Kohlberger's phone pings a cell tower in Johnson, Idaho, roughly four hours later at 530 p.m.

Let's unpack that a bit because this is a really important fact. There actually is no Johnson, Idaho. Yeah, our friends Deanna Thompson and John Green from our new podcast, True Crimes, pointed out that the affidavit likely meant nearby Johnson, Washington.

The town of Johnson is just off the highway between Lewiston, Idaho, where Koberger went shopping, and Pullman, Washington, where he lived. It's also on the route investigators say Koberger traveled after the murders. And remember, according to officials, he didn't take the short, direct road between Moscow and Pullman. He took the back road country roads instead.

Later that day, on Sunday, November 13th, at 5:36 p.m., for three hours, Koberger's phone once again was disconnected from cell service. Think about it. This was a Sunday in November. It's cold. There's NFL on TV. Koberger is busy with his PhD and TA work. This is a long time to just be driving around aimlessly, especially without your cell phone. What was he doing and where was he going? Could he have been moving and trying to get rid of evidence?

Following the murders, people who interacted with Kohlberger saw a dramatic change in his personality. Before the killings, Kohlberger was disliked by his students at Washington State University, who viewed him as strange and remote. Here is Hayden Stinchfield, a former student of Kohlberger's.

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. He had a lot of like boilerplate responses he would give people rather than, you know, maybe something he had thought up on the spot. It seemed like he would be, you know, he'd come in knowing what he was going to say to like most interactions. As a teaching assistant, Koberger was disliked by undergraduates because of his difficult grading and condescending tone.

He was also accused of being sexist and acting inappropriately towards female students. One young woman said he creepily followed her to her car.

Following the murders, Koberger's behavior towards women did not change, but his grading style did. About a month before winter break when like the murders happened, definitely around then, he started grading everybody just to hundreds. Not like you pretty much if you turn something in, you were getting high marks and he stopped leaving notes. It was just crazy.

You know, he seemed preoccupied. It was much easier. You'd turn in whatever you wanted, pretty much. And he was just braiding them up and sending them back. Hayden Stenfield also said around the time of the murders, Koberger's appearance changed as well. Around that time period, I remember him, you know, he had like a little bit more facial hair, just like stubble, but definitely less like well kept than he was. And he was a little quieter. You know, he didn't he used to stand up at the start of class and like talk about some stuff sometimes. And this time he didn't really do that at all.

One of Coburger's fellow graduate students speaking to the media also noticed a distinct change following the murders. I did notice that he was, you know, he was showing up to class a little late sometimes. He always had a coffee in hand. He always seemed to be just perpetually exhausted. Like everybody in a graduate program, there's a little bit of awkwardness. You're trying to fit in. You're trying to find your niece. And Brian Coburger will fit in that. He was awkward. He was trying to fit in. He was trying to

get his inroad into this group and establish these social bonds with other members of the cohort. He did seem to get a little chattier going into the latter part of the term. Again, Stephanie and Jeff. Let's put this into perspective. Around this time, Kohlberger was under a lot of stress from WSU. His boss was mad at him and he was about to get fired. Not to mention, he must have known that the cops were circling in on him in some capacity. Could all that stress have been catching up to him?

Let's just go through the list. He's changing his appearance. He's disinterested in work. He's preoccupied at school. He's behaving very overwhelmed. Clearly something's going on. Is he just overwhelmed because it's the end of the year and it's before the holidays and that's an intense time for many? Or is he behaving like somebody who's just committed mass murder? I agree with that. But I will also say that the fact he was being extra chatty is so strange to me.

When Brian Koberger was arrested in Pennsylvania, investigators also searched his apartment in Pullman, Washington. Here's reporter Chris Bargo. His apartment is certainly very cleaned out. He did leave a few things like a TV.

His storage locker, if it had ever been used, was completely cleaned out. There's no shower curtain when police go there for a search. And there's really very few things inside this apartment that make it seem like someone's living there. It almost seems like he just left behind some trash, maybe things he didn't want. But we're not sure. He also manages to clear it out before authorities get any sort of search warrant or any sort of identifying him as really as the suspect in the case.

So when they finally get to search that apartment, he's cleared it out. So it's not, the potential for evidence has probably been decreased drastically because he'd been gone for more than two weeks actually by the time they searched it. Had Brian Koberger always lived such a bare bones existence? Or was his Washington apartment empty because he had stripped it clean and removed anything that might have incriminated him? Stephanie and Jeff.

I remember being a student. You know, you're kind of broke, so it does stand to reason that his place wouldn't be opulent and lavish. But no shower curtain? That is just odd. I'm thinking he could have used it in his car the night of the murder to keep blood off the seats. Like the TV show Dexter, where he would use plastic to keep any incriminating evidence away.

Three weeks after his arrest, the search warrant for Coburger's apartment was unsealed by a judge. It detailed what forensic teams had found. Investigators removed several items from inside that apartment.

Among the items possibly connecting Koberger to his victims were a single black surgical-type glove, the dust container from Koberger's Bissell Power Force vacuum, a computer tower, a collection of dark red spots, several strands of hair, including one investigators believe is from an animal, multiple store receipts, including one from Walmart with a Dickies tag, and two clippings from a pillow that contained a reddish-brown stain.

Shortly after Brian Coburger became the lone suspect in the brutal quadruple murders, he departed on a cross-country trip back home to Pennsylvania with his father. The fall semester had just finished and Coburger was heading home for the holidays. However, after months of conflict with the faculty in the criminology department over his behavior as a teaching assistant, Coburger's academic career is in doubt.

Just a few days after he departed campus, Koberger would receive a letter from the school saying that his job as a teaching assistant would be terminated and his return to WSU was very much in doubt. Here's reporter Chris Bargo. What do you make of the car ride home with his dad? So we know that dad drove him out, so I would assume that's probably always the plan.

I don't understand why you drive home though if you're coming back. Because it seems like to have your car for four weeks in Pennsylvania, to drive all that way and then all the way back out, that's a pain in the ass. That's a lot of miles on the car. That's not really a new car. So probably should just keep it at the school. But we don't know. I mean, obviously the dad isn't talking. We don't know when he decided to do it.

But again, that's something you could probably explain away at the trial because his dad drove him out there. So this is sort of maybe dad just doing that again. But it's clear that dad, I think, didn't know because when he got stopped that second time, he was talking about how there was this crime at this school. I'm like, you would never bring that up if you knew. You would just sort of not even say the kid went to WSU. You just move along. You try to keep that to yourself. But the dad's like, oh, we're coming from WSU. And there was this sort of big shooting there the other day. Not the crime that his son allegedly committed, but there was another incident right around the holiday. So it's just sort of...

the dad just seemed to be completely in the dark and i mean and they also got home very quickly they made that trip like i think they stopped one night maybe and then they were on the road i mean because they leave the 13th and they're in indiana on the 15th i believe which is a very very fast trip and that also doesn't understand how he gets pulled over twice in 10 minutes coberger was behind the wheel when he was stopped on i-70 outside of indianapolis for following too closely

During the 2,500 mile trip, Kopiger is pulled over twice in less than 10 minutes in Indiana. The interactions with local police were caught on body cam video. Hello. How you doing? How y'all doing today? Good, good. Take a look at your driver's license real quick if I could.

Despite media reports that the FBI was tracking Koberger on his drive home for the Christmas holiday, local police in Indiana say they did not know who Koberger was and that the stops were completely random and simply part of routine drug checks. Jeff and Stephanie.

Both times Kohlberger was pulled over by the local police, he was let go with a warning for tailgating. The interactions were very nonchalant. On the one hand, yes, maybe it's a sign of his privilege, but it seems very unlikely that police would just happen to stop a suspect in a murder investigation twice within 10 minutes. According to the Indiana State Police, which is where this happened, these stops were actually just routine interstate drug trafficking prevention.

Can you imagine if he actually did it? He's getting stopped by police twice in 10 minutes. He must have been losing his mind. Was he nervous? Was he calm? Did he assume he was about to get arrested? Or perhaps even more disturbingly, did he assume he would get away with it and that he was somehow untouchable? Let's stop here for another break.

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If Koberger believes he has eluded law enforcement, he isn't taking any chances once he returns to his parents' home in Albertsville. In the days before Koberger is arrested, police began around-the-clock surveillance. Law enforcement sources told CNN that the Hyundai Elantra that Koberger was driving was cleaned from top to bottom by the suspect.

While he was under surveillance in Pennsylvania at his parents' home, Koberger was seen meticulously cleaning his car, with one investigator saying that Koberger cleaned his car inside and out, not missing an inch. He was also observed taking other protective measures, including taking trash out in the middle of the night and putting garbage bags in his neighbor's trash cans. He was also seen wearing rubber gloves in public. Did Koberger think police were closing in on him?

I mean, I think the only thing that can sort of inform that is the fact that we know when he was arrested, he was sitting at his table wearing latex gloves and putting his trash in ziplock bags. So clearly he knew they were on to him. Like, that's obvious that he knew that. So that behavior would suggest that he was apprehensive. Despite his best efforts to cover up his tracks, investigators recovered Koberger's trash. They tested several items for DNA and were able to make a definitive DNA connection through his father.

In the early morning hours of December 30th, police smashed the windows and doors of the two-story Kohlberger home in the gated community of Indian Mountain Lake Estates. Despite the raid taking place at 1:30 in the morning, the SWAT team found Brian Kohlberger wide awake and cleaning. - Mr. Kohlberger was found awake

in the kitchen area dressed in shorts and a shirt and wearing latex medical type gloves and apparently was taking his personal trash putting it into separate ziploc baggies

Among the items taken from the home were a flashlight, medical-style gloves, a large black sweatshirt, two knives, a Glock 22 .40-caliber handgun, three .40-caliber magazine clips, two black face masks, and a bag of green leafy substance.

Forensic teams also searched Koberger's 2015 Elantra, taking swabs from the car. They also removed the seats, the brake and the gas pedal, and found a shovel, boots and a pair of goggles. Investigators have also reportedly collected 51 terabytes of electronic data as part of their investigation into Brian Koberger. He's left quite the fingerprint online, and I think that's ultimately going to be the evidence that sinks him.

Stephanie and Jeff...

Of course, every suspect is innocent until proven guilty. But if Koberger was actually doing what the police say he was when he was arrested, it is not a good look. You bet the jury is going to hear all about the trash separating, the intense car cleaning, and wearing gloves in public. It's not how normal everyday people act, and the prosecution is going to remind the jury of that. And to many, it looks like Koberger was just trying to act like a criminal mastermind, methodically covering his tracks. But as we know, getting away with murder is never that easy.

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.

MITRE's mission is to solve problems for a safer world. If you have a passion for applied cybersecurity with skills in infrastructure threat intelligence, deterrence technologies, advisal threat emulation, or intelligence analysis, explore the many challenging and fulfilling career opportunities at MITRE.org slash careers. That's M-I-T-R-E dot org slash careers.