Hey, they're folks.
It is Thursday, July the twenty fourth, and some said they wanted him to go to hell. Others said they have actually forgiven him. There was tears, there was anger in the courtroom and a powerful moment when one victim's dad rearranged the courtroom furniture, shall we say, and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Robes.
We expected a lot yesterday from the sentencing hearing for Brian Colberger, of course, convicted now of killing those four University of Idaho students. We knew this was going to be a powerful day. And still it just makes your heart break all over again.
Yeah. I mean, every single parent out there had to just put themselves in these parent shoes, imagining what you would say and how you would feel staring down the person, the man who brutally murdered your child for no reason whatsoever, and the anticipation of either wanting to hear what he had to say, to offer some explanation, to give you some sense of understanding as to why it happened, and
then getting nothing from him, absolutely nothing. Some people didn't want anything from him, but certainly some families expressed a desire to either hear an apology, here an explanation, here's something to try and make sense of something that was and will forever remain senseless.
Yeah, and for a lot of folks book, this was a big day for these families. This was kind of the finality of this case. But there weren't surprises in regards to the sentence. Oftentimes we're standing by to see what the judge is going to do. No, this was a plea deal. We already knew he was going to get the four life sentences, no possibility of parole. I think there were other ten years hacked on for early So none of that was the surprise. The hope was going in that he would say something.
Let's get that out of the way as well.
He was robes, as we know, he was going to be asked, and the judge did do you have something to say? And he gave us the only words we're going to get from him in this case.
I suppose, yeah, that he respect respectfully declined to speak. I respectfully decline, he he said in a soft voice.
There was no from all descriptions robes and all, I mean, we had courtroom observers in there, but also we were able to see it on live stream.
Like nothing from him.
No, he had no nothing, not a reaction, not a nothing.
People, I cannot, I don't even know how you keep a straight face like that, an expressionless face like that when people are calling you a monster, when people are sobbing, when you see your own mother crying, how you just are emotionless, expressionless? It that was incredibly eerie, frankly, to see his complete lack of emotion and just almost it was as if he was not even in his own body.
It was we should say, and you and I have spend a lot of time in courts and courtrooms with tragedies, and we've looked several of us, we've watched them live on television.
Before this set least was.
This was non stop, almost constant emotion in tears from somebody in the courtroom, like as a collective, everybody seemed to be in tears, the judge, the prosecutor.
Yeah.
So for him to sit around all of what was just a non stop emotional tear fest, for him to have nothing is.
I'm curious.
But they say they're done with him, and maybe a lot of us should be as well.
Look, I mean a lot of times, well so many
times with school shootings. Covering these types of tragedies, we have made a point as a news organization not to even say the shooter's name other than the initial reporting day when people needed to know who it was, and then from then on you just refer to that person as the shooter because you don't want to give them any more fame because so often some of these people are seeking that, they're seeking infamy, they're seeking attention, they're seeks so to not give it to them as part
of it. And some of the parents or some of the family members did go up and say, I'm forgetting you. You are only initials now to me. They didn't want to give him any more news coverage or any more attention than he deserves.
I think one of the people, I can't remember which family member but actually said that to him, all these people that are here and all this attention, it's not for you, it's for them, it's for the kids, it's for the victims.
I thought that.
Was you know, I thought it seemed like and I know what he was saying there, but there is so much fascination and there has been so much attention, and we did get more details about Coburger. We're all wondering just why the hell and we had and we got more information yesterday because the gag order was lifted. But it was hard and we were pulling together, like how much do you want to talk about this guy?
It's hard because we're fascinated by evil, because it's first of all, it's scary as hell to know that people like this guy are walking around. They could be your neighbor, they can be your classmate, they can be someone who you've allowed into your home unknowing what's actually deep within them. And so to try to understand him might be to try to understand evil, maybe to recognize it to prevent
further crimes. I mean, I think that's where a lot of folks heads go, just to say, how could this happen? How can we prevent and how can I avoid or have my family avoid this sort of situation and literally to recognize evil.
Really, right now, we don't know what we're dealing with. No, we don't know what to look out for the next time. We don't know the warning signs. We know nothing now from this guy.
We heard from a you know, in some of the information that was released. We heard from someone who was talking to him on Tinder, We heard from a couple of his classmates. We actually heard from a few of his fellow cellmates. But still there's no there's no Aha. It's after the fact. They can say, yeah, he seemed creepy, Yeah he seems like a weirdo. Yeah he seems withdrawn.
But there are plenty of people who are withdrawn and antisocial or socially awkward, and they're not evil, and they're not murderers.
What is it? This came out as well.
The prosecutor said this was not a serial killer in waiting, and went on to explain they went through his background obviously extensively. There's no there's nothing, certainly not a criminal record, but just coming.
Up, was he violent? Was he this so that they said.
There was he was not a serial killer and the signs were missed.
He was exactly and he was a drug abuser. I believe he had a heroin addiction. He was in rehab and he had some burglary, you know, he was stealing phones and things like that to try and get money to pay for drugs. But short of that, there was nothing. And he was highly intelligent that was also very much a part of the discovery into him and what perhaps potentially made him tick. But he was highly intelligent, and that's it. There isn't really a list of oh okay,
like you pointed out, they didn't miss anything. Even his own parents I'm sure couldn't have imagined he was capable of something like this, you know.
So I guess that's enough to talk about him, because we did learn more about the victims as well.
Yesterday.
This was very, very difficult to listen to, and it's difficult, it'll be difficult for you to hear, but we're going to go through some of the tributes, some of the sweet moments that were said. Again, we had parents, friends, surviving roommates, aunties, grandparents, all got up and were able to say something. But it started with and the first two we're gonna start with here robes the surviving housemates. Now, these were the two who were left alive by Coburger, and we don't know.
Why, and they don't know why.
They don't know. But one wasn't there. It was Bethany Funk. She wasn't there, so somebody read a statement on her behalf.
She said, I hate and still hate that they are gone, but for some reason, I am still here and I got to live. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why did I get to live and not them? For the longest time, I could not even look at their families without feeling sick with guilt. And that might explain why she wasn't in the courtroom.
You know, I didn't think about that yet. I didn't hear anything about why she chose not to.
It just might have been too hard.
It might have been You hear this oftentime where it's say, like natural disasters or I mean a plane crash something people have survivors guilt like why did those people die.
And I didn't.
I can't imagine what this feels like. And to have no answers for why.
It's no no, And the other surviving housemaid who did and who was there yesterday Dylan Morton's and she talked about Brian, saying he's a hollow vessel, something less than human. He tried to take everything from me, my friends, my safety, my identity, my future. And we did hear a little bit from some of this unsealed some of the unsealed documents that these two I don't remember which one of
it was Dylan or Bethae. But they actually heard Kayley, one of the girls who was killed, say I think someone's in here, and they ran into their room and locked the door. Then they thought they heard someone sobbing. Then they thought they heard a man's voice speaking, and yet still they just they tried to call the phones of their roommates, but they were too afraid to leave their room.
All this we learned now. I mean, it was a house of horrors that night, and so much we got from the stuff that has been released describing the scene that night.
It's a whole horrific, horrific.
One of the victims was stabbed fifty times. One of the other victims was stabbed thirty times, and to the point where they were unrecognizable. I mean, it's just it's disgusting. It's I can't imagine being in again the shoes of those parents and getting those details. It's unthinkable. But we also heard from so many family members. Mattie Mogan's stepfather, Scott talked about Mattie and saying this world was a better place with her in it. He talked about her mom.
He said, Karen and I were ordinary people, but we lived extraordinary lives because of Mattie.
I thought that was a really cool way to put it, and to sum up your child. Yeah, I'm just I'm nothing here, but man, she made me special. She made my life special.
That was a good way to put it. He he was one.
I think several people kind of alluded to this in some way, that this person is insignificant and to be forgotten. And Scott Laramie said, that's for the defendant. We will not waste the words, nor will we nor will we fall into the hatred and bitterness. Evil has many faces and we now know this, but evil does not deserve our time and attention. That was a lot of that, and Mgen's grandmother got up as well, and this was
the one, a short sentence that was so powerful. The foundation fell out of our world.
That makes so much sense. I mean she talked about having now a stack of books on grief and having attended grief classes in therapy. I mean, you never get over the death of a child ever, and now they're having to deal with living without the people who, yes, were their foundation. Madison Mogan's dad, and he talked about his substance abuse. He talked about how she was the reason why he lived while he fought to see another day, why he worked so hard to to basically win his
battle against addiction. But he said she was the only great thing I ever really did. Oh that makes me. Oh, that chokes me up, and the only thing I was ever really proud of.
Yeah, guys, he's been through some things, you could tell, and you can tell looking at that girl, like, Wow, she came from love. She's a good kid. I got something right and that thing is gone from him now that stuff comes through in some of these words. Now the next one here and help me.
I keep messing up.
The last name Kaylee gun Salves and her family has been very outspoken since the murders, and they have been very outspoken about their displeasure about this deal that was made to spare him from the death penalty, and they had been outspoken about not getting information. So I mean, this is a family that is in the throes of grief. But they're angry, and you could hear from the father, Steve, the sister, and the mom all they are angry.
And Steve, the dad, is the one who changed things up in the courtroom. He changed the tone in the courtroom when he rearranged some of the court room furniture.
Welcome back, everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about the sentencing hearing for Brian Comberger and the grief and the anger that was in that courtroom from the parents and the family members and the people who loved those four victims who were senselessly murdered by this thirty year old PhD student with zero reason, zero explanation Z, zero connection to any of the victims.
But it was Kaylee. It was Kaylee Guncal Sorry, I now I'm messing up her name, as well as Kaylee Gunsalvez, Kaylee Gonzalvez's father, who really created a moment. There were many moments, but really created a moment.
You're supposed to I think people will remember this that I think I can't remember the judge did in this case. But you're addressing the court. You're not supposed to be directly addressing anybody else.
In the court.
So the podium that they stand they speak at, is on the floor and directed towards the bench. Essentially the jujudges Yeah, and Steve Gunsalves physically grabbed that podium and turned it in the direction of the defendant Coburger, to speak to him directly. Now Robes, the judge would have been perfectly within his right to say, turn that back, you address the court.
You're not going to do that. Judge didn't stop them.
I'm not upset about that.
Judge didn't stop.
And you know that was his moment. Everything had been taken from him, His power had been taken from him, his beautiful daughter had been taken from him. Like give him that that moment, and he did.
And after that there were a lot of moments that I guess involve more anger and direct speak if you will to Coburger. But Kaylee's dad said this, nobody cares about you. You're not worth the time, the effort to be remembered. In time, you will be nothing but two initials forgotten to the wind, no visitors, nothing more than initials on an otherwise unmarked tombstone. And again from here on now there, I guess after this it felt like everybody else felt a.
Little more in bolded.
They already had their statements ready, but after this the tone was was very angry.
Because Kaylee's sister and Kaylee's mom, this family is angry, and so her sister said this to Brian, disappointments like you thrive on pain, I won't feed your beast. Instead, I will call you what you are, sociopath, psychopath, murderer. And she said, you want the truth, here's the one you'll hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep in the middle of the night like a pedophile,
Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass. And the courtroom actually applauded after she said that Kaylee's mom she had something also just very I mean just you could just feel her pain in these words. She said this to him. When those prison doors slam shut behind you, I hope that sound echoes in your heart for the rest of your meaningless days. I hope it reminds you of what we already know, your nothing. May you continue to live your life in misery. But it's okay because they're to help.
They're there to help you. Hell will be waiting, and she said, but it's okay because they're there to help you. She actually took the words that one of the roommates said she thought she heard him say to Kaylee to her daughter, and so she used that same phrase against him when she addressed him.
Well, God, Mattiemgen's mom got up. I just want to mention this because this is something again, a lot of people can relate to. We don't keep this in mind enough. She said, those who commit evil for their own twisted gains and purposes truly defile the efforts and sacrifices of mothers, fathers, families, teachers, clergy, public servants, service members, and all those who commit themselves.
To the greater good.
She was making a reference about the light, and she put this together in such a way when you it's not just a family, right, how many people in your life right now are you coming up? This was a team effort to get you through elementary school, high school, college, whether that's aunts, whether that you can remember some pastor somewhere, you can remember teacher somewhere. But she went through and listed like you robbed not this fan, you robbed a
community that had invested in this girl. I thought that was a great line from Karen Laramie as her name, that's a Matti Mugen's mom.
Yeah, And she talked about Mattie's beauty. She said, both inside, outside and in shown its light upon everyone with whom she came in content, and she said, Maddie carried that hope and light into the future for our entire family. And that's it's just it's gutting to think about the futures that will no longer happen. The future is that investment that that community and her family put into her just cut short.
And the This one's tough of Xana Karnodle's dad. He's going to be dealing with this with the rest of his life, obviously losing his daughter.
But he I didn't know this.
I hadn't heard the story before that she wasn't feeling well that night and it actually called her dad, don't have the right end was considering I think he said only lived seven minutes away or seven miles either way, He's very close, and he didn't go by. And she was the one that encouraged.
Him not to because he had had a couple drinks, you know, and she didn't. Yeah, and so oh, I mean that to know that you would have been there, could have been there, should have been there, maybe even and you could have stopped it. So Xana's dad said this, I would have been sitting right there on that couch and I regret that and I regret not going, But the reason why I didn't is because she said, Dad, don't be drinking and driving.
That's a tough one we had to hear in court yesterday.
I thought this is interesting.
Her aunt, Kim aunt also spoke and I'm and I'm not sure if she was serious, and maybe she actually was. She said to him, anytime you want to talk and tell me what happened, get my number. I'm here, no judgment. I'll be the one who listens.
Now.
Because what she suggesting, there were so many other family members like I don't want to hear his voice. I don't want to hear anything from him. Others are saying, yes, I want to hear It almost sounds like she was volunteering to be the one who has to listen on behalf of everybody.
It makes sense, though, like I don't think any I don't know that any parent. I don't think I could hear that directly, and I certainly wouldn't want to be engaged in any kind of conversation with someone who had
done that to my daughter. But maybe if you're just a little bit removed, you're an aunt, and you can take that for your sister or your brother and you can bring That makes a lot of sense to me that you can have just enough of a removal that you could process it, you could emotionally distance yourself from it enough to give that gift back to your family if there was something that could be explained, if there was something, any nugget that could give them any peace or any sort of closure.
A couple more here from Xana's family here than a anerdle.
I'm saying that correctly. Yes to hope.
Dad was angry here and this is her Stepdad was actually pointing at Coburg at the time when he was saying this, but he said, there's no place for you in heaven.
You took our children. You are going to suffer.
I am shaking because I want to reach out to you.
Go to hell oof.
I mean, you can't, like I can't imagine feeling anything but wanting to cause harm to him, physical harm to him, emotional harm to him. And you could hear with some of the words that some family members were choosing. They wanted to try and give him as much pain as possible. And I understand that. I understand that Sana's mom said, I pray before this life is over that you ask our Lord and Savior in your heart to forgive you.
I do pray for that. But after today I wash my hands of you, and you are no longer a thing.
It's been three years from them. That is very, very difficult to imagine that they will deal with the pain of the loss of their child for a long time. But to have to try to put out of your mind or forget about or put away this guy and your anger at this guy and what he took from you is ah, look, guy, Hart goes out to him to pull that off. But what a day it was in court, and again the judge at times was described by some as wiping away tears at times, and he
as well had strong words for the defendant. Oftentimes judges do do this before, said they're fair during the trial, and you know they call it as the referee. But this was his chance to unload a little bit as well.
Yeah, that's right. He said. The loss this killer inflicted was not just the death of these people's children, siblings, grandchildren, as we've heard today. It has ripped a hole in their soul, destroying a special part of their very essence. There is no reason for these crimes that could approach anything resembling rationality. In my view, the time has now come to end for mister Coburger's fifteen minutes of fame.
It's time that he'd be consigned to the ignominy and isolation of perpetual Incarceration's it.
It's over.
Will we ever hear from him again? Maybe there'll be folks for years trying to get a jail house interview or get him to write letters or some type of things. We may hear from him again, and you know when he does. If he does, man, that is going to rip another new wound for these folks.
Yes, it certainly is. And in terms of him not speaking and so many people wanting to hear him say something, give some explanation, the prosecutor took the time to defend their decision because they could have insisted that he gives some reason or some sort of motive in exchange for the plea deal that they made with him so that he could avoid the death penalty. But this is what the prosecutor said. He said, I don't believe there's anything that would have come out of his mouth that would
be the truth. I don't believe there's anything that would come out of his mouth that would be anything other than self serving. And I don't believe there's anything that would come out of his mouth that would not further victimize the families. And so that just simply wasn't a factor. Kaylee Goun saw his father still after the sentencing hearing, still was not okay with that, and he said the negotiation that meaning the deal was not justice, it was
a shortcut. We said from the very beginning, we're not interested in a short cut for our daughter. We wanted everything. And I get that that's fair.
So, yeah, that's what they said they want. I actually don't know, and you can tell me if you've seen it somewhere if they consulted with like they don't give them the well, oftentimes yes, prosecutors do give the family a choice, would you.
Like to do this or this.
I have seen actually a recent victim, specifically with Kaylee's father, and they said they were shut out, kept in the dark not only from the details of the crime to the information they had on Coburger, but also when it came to any negotiations that were being made, and they were extremely upset about that.
Well.
Also, one of the nuggets note from the court yesterday. I mean, Coburger's mom was in the courtroom and cried pretty consistently at a number of times when I think, in particular, when one of the victims' family members got up and was talking about the shame he brought to the Coburger name, she was in tears. But she was in tears during a lot of these statements. What she's going through, what she's feeling, how people are directing maybe anger towards her, don't know. But she sat in that
courtroom as a as a mama does. Right, doesn't a mother always show up for the kid no matter what. I know how horrific this is, but she is still in there, maybe to show support or in some way even for the victims.
She showed up.
She showed up, and I do think. Look, I can only speak from my vantage point as a mom, though, but the amount of guilt, the incredible guilt you would carry with you for the rest of for life, thinking what did I do wrong? What signs did I miss? How did I give birth to and raise a monster? Because there's no other word to use for this. He is a monster.
We got a lot of details that we're just not going to get into here because it was a big lift of the police report. The gag order was lifted, I mean, and some of the details about the scene are just horrific what these kids went through, just.
How just how violent this was.
Yes, there can be degrees to violence when it comes to stabbing, this was overkill.
Some of the things they describe here.
There'll be time and a place for all of that, but we just wanted to hop on here and give you some of the words and from the family members who lost so much in a story we have all kept an eye on for the past several years. This is some level of closure for the family today.
It is some level of closure. And I've trying to think of any takeaway. You know, We've had to cover
so many of these awful stories. This is among the worst, though, because I think because there is no explanation, there is no rationality, there was no love triangle, there was no nothing that you could say, Okay, that's what made him snap, that's what that's why he did this, and so it is so senseless and I think the only takeaway I can take from this and this is how I've had to kind of go through being a parent and also covering these awful things is to say, hug your kids,
tell them you love them. So much is out of
our control. There's nothing anyone could have done to prevent this from what we can see or tell, and so all you can do is just make the most of the time you do have with the people you love, and to tell them you love them, and to spend as much joyful time you can with one another, recognizing that we never know what tomorrow brings, and there's so many Most of these things that happen in the world we can't prevent, we can't stop, and we can't anticipate. All we can do is love each other.
This one's different.
We've seen horrifics to and whether they say afterwards, well, yeah, there was a sign here and a person saw this and they didn't report that. They didn't think it was a big deal. That's one thing that was not a sign anybody ever suggested that was missed.
And ropes. They are still to.
Your all your points there about you never know when things are out of your control. They are still not one single link they can find between Coburger and these four victims that not a social media post, not a past, each other in a coffee shop. Nothing, And that is difficult to think that just sometimes bad shit happens, like horrific, evil shit happens, really to these four, it just we will We cannot get our heads around it. Bab can't
get mady. We can prepare for all kinds of stuff, How do you prepare for maniac you've never heard from? Just come in and killing for no reason?
You can't, you can't. All we can do. All we can do is hug each other, love each other, and make the most out of every moment we have each and every day when we hear stories like this, So thank you for listening to us. We'll hopefully be able to hop back on with maybe something less dark. But there are lessons in all tragedies, and we hope you have a beautiful, blessed day to day. Thanks for listening to us. I may be robot on behalf of my partner T. J. Holmes. We'll see you soon.