Ryan Coberger outstargazing and driving the night four University of Idaho students were murdered. That's part of the alibi he's offering to the.
Court sometimes and then this won't shock anybody who's done defense work. Clients will lie to their attorneys.
This is the Idaho Massacre. A production of KAT Studios and iHeartRadio, Season two, Episode four, A Hamster Wheel of Justice. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios, with Stephanie Leidecker and Gabe Castillo. On December thirtieth, twenty twenty two, six weeks after the murders of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Kaylie Gonzalvez, twenty eight year old criminology PhD student Brian Coburger was arrested at his family home
in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. Here's Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso.
Mister Coburger 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 and putting it into separate ziploc baggies.
Here's Stephanie just picturing the accused Brian Coburger wearing shorts and a T shirt in surgical latex gloves. Is such a chilling detail, So let's just play this out for a second. If in fact, Brian Coburger did this, that would actually mean that he murdered four people. Then he
went back to class in the days thereafter. Then his dad picks him up at his apartment in Washington, and as we know, the two of them infamously drove in Brian's white Alantra across country to go home for Thanksgiving break. You'll also remember that the police hold Brian and his dad over twice allegedly to see if he had any scratch marks on his hand, and bodycam footage shows that he did. Now he's home, he's at his parents' house for Thanksgiving break, and he realizes his car is a
crime scene. So now he's wearing these latex gloves and leaning it out, making sure that things are put in their proper ziploc bags. CNN reported that he cleaned his car inside and out, not missing an inch. That's a pretty big deal. Does that mean he's just trying to make sure there isn't any evidence left behind, or, as the defense would probably say, maybe he's just a meticulous guy that doesn't like germs and just likes to forever be wearing a latex glove.
On January fourth, twenty twenty three, the accused was extradited back to Idaho, where he appeared in court to wave his right to a speedy trial. Seven long months after that, on August two, twenty third Judge John Judge, who continues to preside over the case, pushed back the initial start date, which was set for October second, twenty twenty three. As of this recording, a new trial start date has still
not been set. Recently, victim Kaylee Gonsalvez's family released a statement saying this case is turning into a hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and delayed decisions. Can we all just agree that this case needs to move forward and the judge needs to start setting hard deadlines in this case.
Kaylee's mom says she feels like they've been in limbo now for more than a year, and while she's hopeful, mostly what they want is a trial date to be.
Said, to get a better understanding of these pre trial proceedings. I spoke with Kirk Nurmi, legal analyst and former defense attorney to Jody Arius. Arius was in a widely publicized death penalty case in twenty thirteen from murdering her ex boyfriend Travis Alexander in Arizona. In the state of Idaho, three people have been executed since the mid nineteen seventies. For context, during that time, nearly sixteen hundred felons have
been put to death in the United States. I asked Kirk about a hearing in this case that took place on January twenty sixth, twenty twenty four. At that hearing, Coberger's defense attorney, Ann Taylor, tried for the second time to get all charges dismissed. I asked Kirk if it was rare for attorneys to take a second bite at the apple.
No.
We have to understand in a death penalty context, if a defendant is sentenced to death, what the attorneys did or did not do will be examined for years down the road. I mean, if somebody is sentenced to death, usually it takes about fifteen years for that execution to actually take place, and during those fifteen years, the federal courts will take a look at it, and it will go all the way up to the US Supreme Court.
One of the reasons about fifty percent of the death penalty verdicts get overturned, and one of the reasons for that is the council's failure to pursue certain avenues of defense. So it is reasonable and expected and really minimum practice for the defense attorneys and the death penalty case to pursue every avenue possible, even multiple times if there is reason to do that.
The victim's family, you want the trial to be expedited. It sounds like the judge as well wanted to expedite the case, but defense obviously has been pushing hard to delay.
Can you speak to that.
Yeah, I mean it goes back to some extent about having things done right. I mean, the prosecution knows, and with all due respect to the family, understand why they want justice to be swift. But the prosecution understands that if they are investing all these resources. I mean, it always costs the state pursuing death penalty, both for the
prosecution team and for the defense team. It costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of court resources, etc. They want to make sure they do it once if it is expedited in any way, and in that review process years down the road, of course, there's no wait a minute, this tra happened too fast because you did not give the defense proper notice on this particular issue or proper time to investigate the mitigating circumstances surrounding mister
Colberger's life. Then then it could be redone again, and so hasty justice doesn't necessarily mean justice. It has to be justice done thoroughly and one hundred percent correctly. Or again, there's a fifty percent chance that a sentencing verdict would be overturned.
Wow, that's a crazy high statistic.
Is the pressure so much higher because of that extra judicial oversight?
Sure? I mean there's an expression amongst defense attorneys that death is different, and that is exactly the case. It is a meticulous, high stress situation where every avenue must be pursued because of that scrutiny that is going to face years down the road. No defense attorney wants to be considered ineffective. Nobody involved wants to have to try the case again. That fifty percent rate I talk about
it is always related to the sentencing. It doesn't have anything to do with guilt or innocence, but it has to do with that death sentence. And that means that the judge, the prosecution, and the defense attorney all have to do their job almost perfectly, if you will, because the penalty is one from which no redress can be made once it's imposed.
Here's something I don't know about, and I don't know how much listeners do at all. What do people need to know about closed door hearings for a grand jury? And what is a grand jury?
Sure? Well, a grand jury, you know, you think about it just like any other former jury. Duty might be the way that people can relate to it most. But when you're in a grand jury, it's secretive. It's just the prosecution presenting evidence, and the question is there probable cars to charge a defendant with a certain crime. The defense is not there. They do not provide evidence. It's not a trial. But ultimately it's that secret proceeding to
decide whether or not a charge is made. So the difference really is the secrecy of it and the charging decision. It's a lower standard versus you know, guilty or not guilty. What a normal jury does in a public setting.
And are these just regular jury like I was on jury duty yesterday as a matter of fact, Is this just the normal population? Yes, I don't know why it seems very mysterious to me.
Well, I think it sounds mysterious because it's someone is I mean, it happens behind closed doors. Nobody knows, you know, about the preceding. The future defendant doesn't know that this is going on. The testimony doesn't take place in open court, there's no cross examination. All is that has really seen, at least in my experience in Arizona. When it's done, is the transcript of the proceedings?
That's it is?
The transcript? Does that go on the official record?
And is that something that can be looked at by the defense or anyone else at a later time.
Yeah, certainly. And we see this in a lot of death penalty cases, but also other cases where they might challenge the sufficiency of the indictment, and those challenges are all based on the grand jury. If the prosecution failed to present exculpatory evidence that they knew they had, etc. If a witness lied during the grand jury in order to precipitate an indictment being filed, those sort of things can be something that they looked at because you again,
you're not subject to cross examination. So if a police officer goes in there and says something that is not true or is later contradicted, they contradict themselves on the stand, that testimony can be used to attack their credibility and or attack the credibility of the indictment.
One more follow up with that.
Let's say that scenario just happened a police officer or any witness is then you know their testimony is found to be contradictory. Could that mean midstream that the charges are then changed, that those are then dropped or is that not the case?
No, that's unlikely because when you that is a challenge that would maybe take place at the grand jury challenging the grand jury transcript. So let's say Officer X goes in and testifies to something and his police report is completely different. You could maybe challenge the grand jury proceedings on that basis. If it gets to the trial portion of the proceedings, you could go back and impeach his
credibility with that prior testimony. Like in Arizona, there's limits and I forget the exact amount of days, but you have to challenge the grand jury finding within a certain amount of days that precedes trial. So once that window is closed and or things are ruled upon, that becomes an issue for the appellate record, not trial per se, other than to impeach the witness with their prior testimony.
So the second hearing I wanted to talk about this happened February twenty eighth of this year, and this hearing was open to the public. So in this instance, a lot was made on the fact that the defendant, Brian Kolberger, was wearing a suit. Can you give your thoughts on that, the judge's decision, the family's reaction.
Sure, and I understand seeing some of the family's comments how they don't appreciate seeing that what have you. But we have to remember, going back to what I said earlier about the propriety that everything is done right. In a death penalty case, a defendant is presumed innocent, and we tend to forget that, I think in the court of public opinion, and if they are seen especially when we talk about a high profile case like this, if they are seen in jail garb or shackled with a
stun belt and chains, and what have you. Then people begin to inform an impression not only of his guilt, his violent nature. They begin forming those oppressions off those visuals. So you want to prevent that at every stage of the proceeding before guilt has been established, if you will.
So that is very important. Again, if you have an appellat attorney looks down years down the road and says, well, look, this guy was put in shackles and paraded in front of the entire jury panel of Leta County, and therefore his trial wasn't fair. That could be a viable argument that could have a disc sentence reversed.
So really it sounds like for the greater good of the sanctity of not having the case overturned.
Almost well, yeah, I mean, that's one less issue of pursuit, if you will, on the appellate level at the federal.
Level, with your court room experience, I don't know if you've had the experience of where a defendant is both dressed in civilian closed and dressed in shackles, and is there a different feel sort of in the room or from the jury.
Well, the jury is only going to see a defendant in street clothes. Quote unquote. If they are a danger, every effort is made to mask any restraints that they have on them. They're not going to be sitting there with handcuffs on unless there's some particular reason for it. The jury would probably be instructed not to make any inferences from that. So anytime somebody's in front of a jury, they are going to be in quote unquote street clothes, and any restraints will be masked.
That's a really interesting point because I must have conflated seeing pre trial hearings because I'm like, oh, well, I can picture plenty of defendants and clothes, but not in front of the jury.
That's true. So if there is a pre trial where it's only the judge, if you will, and not televised, then the judge has knowledge obviously of the defendant's custodial status because in many cases they've set that status. They don't need to be protected from it if it doesn't interfere with the sixth Amendment right of the defendant. Because ultimately, in a courtroom, it is the jury that makes the decision. They are the final arbiter of guilt or innocence.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense, perfect sense, Thank you.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. There have been well more than a dozen pre trial hearings in this case, but the most significant revelation is the alibi of the accused.
So here.
Their alibi defense apparently is that he likes to drive around and see the moon and the stars.
The new alibi. I have like a little theory about that.
Do I buy it? No?
The prosecution is currently taking great issue with what they claim is the defense's lack of progress in furthering the details of the defendant's alibi, and in April twenty fourth, twenty twenty four, filing from prosecutor Bill Thompson, he writes, it has now been approximately eleven months since the state filed its request for discovery disclosure alibi demand on May twenty third, twenty twenty three, and almost a year and
a half since the homicides occurred. The defendant has been given more time than he is legally entitled in order to provide his alibi. The state is substantially prejudiced and compromised in its ability to investigate and respond to new or additional alibi related disclosures.
Ryan Coburger outstargazing and driving the night four University of Idaho students were murdered. That's part of the alibi he's offering to the court.
That's crime reporter Antoinette Levy, who's been following this case from the beginning. She continues describing the alibi details on a recent an episode of Law and Crime Network's Crime Fix with Antoinette Levy.
So he says he certainly wasn't at that house. Instead, his lawyer's right mister Coburger was out driving in the early morning hours of November thirteenth, twenty twenty two, as he often did to hike and run and or see the moon and stars. He drove throughout the area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho, including Wawaii Park
in Idaho. If a defendant is going to claim they have an alibi, they have to tell the prosecutor about a specific place or place is where they were when a crime took place, and they have to identify a witness or witnesses who can vouch for them.
In the state's motion filed after the alibi was revealed, Prosecutor Bill Thompson writes, the state respectfully submits that the defendant's supplemental alibi response continues to lack the specificity required by Idaho Code nineteen Dash five, Pine nine, which provides that the defense shall state the specific place or places at which the defendant claims to have been at the time of the alleged defense, and the names and addresses of the witnesses upon whom he intends to rely to
establish such alibi. In an effort to better understand the legalities of these motions, I continued my conversation with Kirknermi. I asked him to explain why the prosecution had such a strongly worded filing after the alibi was revealed.
It's interesting because idahol must be a little different. An alibi, in my experience in Arizona, is nothing that has to be supported or enunciated. I mean, you might call witnesses to support it, but you wouldn't have to enunciate it if you will.
I'd love clarification of the fact that in this case, the prosecution said the lack of a finalized version of Coberger's alibi was concerning and argue that a deadline was necessary to ensure the alibi was not affected by evidence unveiled during discovery I guess first, what is discovery because my understanding was that was the finding out of information.
Yeah, I mean there is a bit of mystery surrounding that because we don't have all the information. My understanding is that what the Coburger team is saying with this stargazing alibi, if you will, is that they will be able to support this alibi, not by persons or you know, video evidence, but strictly by cell phone evidence that contradicts
the cell phone evidence brought in by the state. And they are also making the assertion, as I understand it, that the state has not fully disclosed all the cell phone evidence that would be supportive of the alibi. Thus, they are simply putting out there that he was stargazing and their cell phone expert will support that.
I have to ask, what's your knee jerk reaction to the alibi?
If you want to share, do I buy it? No?
But if that's what you're asking, do I buy it no? But it remains to be seen what the cell phone evidence is going to demonstrate. A lot of people send to think that a defense attorney or a group of defensive attorneys sit down and concoct a defense or that they sit down with their client and they make up a defense. But sometimes this won't shock anybody who's done
defense work. Clients will lie to their attorneys, right, and a lot of times sometimes you know you can lie in a way that there's no affirmative proof to the contrary. So he says, I'm out stargazing. He very well could have been stargazing before or after he committed this crime. There's no proof to the contrary. So my guess is mister Kolberger believes he's very smart and says, hey, this is my alibi. You can't disprove it.
Stephanie joins the conversation.
That does sound like it's right out of a movie.
Is that what actually happens.
Somebody seems so tricky that they're going to create this entire fabric of a story to their defense attorney. As a defense attorney, are you able to call bs or do you have to play along?
Well, as a defense attorney, unless you can disprove it, you have to allow the client to tell their story. You are not judging jury. You are there to help them tell their story, whether you believe it or not. So if a client comes up and we continue with the alibi example, how can you disprove that? Is there some way to disprove that? No, if there's not, that's the point. Unless the attorney can prove the alibi to
be false. Let's say he says I was with my mother or I was buying gas, and there's no evidence to support the alibi. Then he or she can confront their client with this evidence. There's no gotcha moment, right, There's no one more thing ask you this because you can't disprove it. And that's why a lot of criminal defense think, hey, this is a great story because it cannot be disproven. They've got time to sit in jail
and vet their lie, if you will. And this cannot be disproven, can't be able to be proven, but it certainly can't be disproven.
Is it as simple as somebody checking the weather to say that that particular night there were no stars to be seen in the sky.
No, not at all. I mean it's you could still stargaze, you can still gaze at the clouds, you could do anything, right. I mean, there's you could say it's less probable, but you can't definitively prove it to be a lie.
Can you, as a defense attorney. You hear this story, you're not buying it. Are you able to excuse yourself as the defense attorney?
No, just because you don't believe a story doesn't mean that you are not the right attorney for the car. I mean clients all the time in my so, I want an attorney that believes in me. I want an attorney that believes in me. And the response is fine, if you want one, stupid enough, go find one. But I'm not going to buy this story, and I don't think a jury will. But if that doesn't knock the client off the story, then they they the client can
get up on the stand and tell that story. Brian Colberger can get up on the stand and tell the story that he was stargazing that night. That does not violate the ethics of the attorney, and as a matter of fact, it is their ethical obligation. Particularly in a
death penalty case. An attorney can't say, well, you know what, I had this defense or I had this bit of mitigation, but I didn't believe it, so I didn't present it to the jury because it's not what the attorney believes, it's what the jury believes.
After this conversation, we checked the weather and saw that when Coberger is alleged to be stargazing, it was overcast with intimate and isis fog. Having spoken with defense attorney Kirk Nurmi, Stephanie and I wanted to balance the equation. Here's a turn me and former prosecutors Steven Greenberg's take on the suspect's alibi and how he thinks it might play in court.
It underscores the lack of sophistication of the sense team. It really does. I mean, are you going to open through a jury and say that the jury that we have a moon in the stars defense that's our alibi. Come on, they're going to look at you and say, my goodness, where did you come from?
Is there anything to the fact that you kind of can't poke holes in it versus saying, you know, I went to the gas station at twelve thirty three am. So is that perhaps the rationale that there's nothing specific about it, that it is so vague.
I think it's like throwing a whole bunch of stuff against the wall helps something sticks or something will come out later on. They should have got the prostitutions trying to avoid that will boaster it. They just want to have it out there. They're obligating it to disclose their albi.
Stephanie speaks with Inside Edition reporter Chris Bargo, who followed the case from the beginning, to get his thoughts on the alibi revelation.
Right now, when people ask you about his guilt or innocence based on what we know concretely, I mean, it's hard to really say one way or the other. I mean, we don't really know much about the prosecution's case, but we know the defense is entire alibi, so that you know, at this point when you think about it, the defense has a much better case just because we know so little. We know the proba will cause affidavor that says he is in the cell phone area. They don't have math
house in that Affidavid. We don't know. There could be fingerprints in the house we don't know about. There could be a million things we don't know about. What we know for a fact. They know we have his car leaving Washington State University. We know his car arriving back at Washington State University. We know foods a few sightings of it along the way heading towards Moscow, leaving and we have some photos of the car. No, we have photos of the car. We don't have photos of Brian Coberger.
None of those things say that they have photos of Brian. But they could prove that Brian is there. They could say they have a car that looks like Brian's driving. It's certainly reasonable. Doubt wise, it's not awful. They don't have his car park there. For what we know, they
don't have him getting out of the car. They don't have him inside the house of the information we have so far, So based on that alone, it's hard to convict someone with that alibi at this stage given what we know, because we don't really have any other evidence of definitively places in there.
And by the way, most of this information is really circumstantial.
Is it very.
Likely that all these small things all happened to lead to the same guy?
Who the hell knows?
That's just the reality of it. We don't know, And the sum of small things I'm not convinced should equal death in my humble opinion. And of course, you know, we're still at the phase of gathering information.
The burdens right now are aligning with the prosecution the defense. Like I said, the defense. Alibi is not much in the way of a It's not like he was with a friend who was driving alone. If you have to pick an alibi and you couldn't think of one that you know, I was alone doing something. But with this
case and what we know, it's again reasonable doubt. So could you say, knowing what we know, could you one hundred percent say that he's guilty of deserves that I would not want to put someone to death based on that nolgulum. There's something there that's going to be mind boggling when it's presented.
I reached out to data analysts Body Movin, host of another KTI Studios podcast, Drew Crimes. Her incredible soothing skills came to be known in the public with Netflix documentary Don't f with Cats. After dissecting the alibi, motion Body had her own particular thoughts to share.
I think what's interesting maybe to talk about is the alibi the new alibi, because I have like a little theory about that.
Body reads to the amended alibi.
Brian Coberger's amended alibi says that he was busy with classes at work and at Washington State University, and he was running and hiking and those activities decreased but did not stop. Instead, his nighttime drives increased, and it says this is supported by data from mister Coberger's phone showing him in the countryside late at night or early in the morning on several occasions. The phone data includes numerous photographs taken on several different late evenings and early mornings,
including in November, depicting the night sky. And then it goes on to say mister Coburger was out driving in the early morning hours of November thirteenth, as he often did, to hike and or run see the moon and stars. He drove throughout the area of south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho, including Wahwawee Park. So it's basically saying he always goes driving late at night, and there's evidence of pictures taken on his phone, including pictures that
were taking in November. Now, it doesn't say that he has pictures from that night or that morning. It just says including in November. So we need to make that clear right now because a lot of people are running with well he has pictures from his phone that night. No he doesn't, No, he doesn't. So that's number one, because that's a big thing online right now. People are like, well, it's done, he's got a picture, it's got metadata. No, no, no,
I very much doubt that. And number two, the PCA says Brian Coburger either turned off his phone, turned it onto airplane mode, or was out of service and then picked back up after the murders. Here's what I kind of think and something I kind of want to talk to you about. In the alibi, it states that there's going to be this Sirae who's the CSLI expert, the cell phone tower, cell phone and other radio frequency expert to corroborate that Brian Coburger's phone was south of Pullman
and west of Moscow. Well, we've got a map of Idaho or in Washington, where is Waweb Park. It's south of Pullman and west of Moscow. Okay. So here's what I kind of think. And it's a bad service area. By the way, it's important to note that it's a bad service area.
Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in a moment. Body goes on to say this herself, but it's important to note that the following is her own opinion. Based on extrapolations made from reviewing legal documents.
I think what happened is, is it possible that Brian Coberger actually did go to Wawei Be Park just outside the gate or along that area and left his phone like in a bush or something, drove to Moscow because it took him like an hour, did his murders, and then drove back to Wawi Bee Park and got the phone. Because it puts his phone at a location where he's been previously many times, but it's got terrible service, so
it gives him credibility to this alibi. And if that's true, is that an area that police now and whatnot need to be looking at for a k bar dicky coveralls? Do you know what I mean? Like evidence of a dumping of some kind?
Like that's a really really interesting thought.
If what I said about, you know, leaving the phone at what we We park is true, then that shows intention. I mean, obviously there was intention, clearly, but what I mean is like premeditation in ways that I hadn't really considered all that much. It just shows a lot more purpose because it's very sheet. But again it's just a theory.
More on that next time for more information on the case and relevant photos. Follow us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Trois, Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker is a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You can follow Kirknermi on Instagram and x at Nermi Unchained, and find his books on Amazon.