The level of brutality is something I don't think that even I was prepared for.
Did this really happen? Did I do this? Or was this a fever dream?
I can only imagine the horror that she experienced in those moments.
This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of KAT Studios and iHeartRadio, Season three, Episode three, The Unsealed Files. I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leideger and Gabriel Castillo. For nearly three years, much of the case against Brian Coberger has remained sealed, hidden behind reactions, legal arguments, and courtroom silence. But now that silence is breaking.
Shortly after the convicted killer was led off to begin his life sentence, hundreds of pages of investigative documents were unsealed, giving us our most detailed look yet into the case that stunned the country. The evidence, the interviews, and more information on the chilling timeline of what unfolded in the hours, days and weeks surrounding the murders of Madison, Mogen, Kaylei Gonzalvez, Xanakernodle,
and Ethan Chapin. What do these newly revealed documents tell us how do they change our perception of what went on that faithful night and what questions do they raise about motive, surveillance and intent. Today we're diving into what investigators walked into on that faithful day and what a camean in terms of a possible target in this case. Here's forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan with our producer Alison Bankston.
When you were going through these documents, what stood out the most to you and what surprised you the most? What jumped out at you forensically level.
Of brutality for me because it sounds horribly naive, but for me, I think I'd always hoped that it wasn't going to be as bad as it has turned out to be. I should have known better as an old death investigator and a forensic scientist, given all the hundreds and hundreds of deaths that I worked as a practitioner, all the cases I've covered in the media, I was not prepared for what was the big reveal. For an investigator,
this is one of the tough parts. You have to be able to shield yourself from this creeping sensation that you know you've got destroyed lives in front of you. You cannot let your guard down in this environment relative to the task that is at hand. You have to
focus like a laser. You have to be prepared before you go into that dwelling, before you go into the individual rooms, of what your plan is, what you're going to do when you walk in, because if you go in and you're out of sorts in any way, it really has potential to train wreck the entire investigation.
Right absolutely, Joseph, Can you tell us you know about what these investigators found that morning. Of course we knew some of this from the affidavit and previously released documents, but you know, these new documents give us an even deeper glimpse into what the investigators really truly walked into. And it's just horrifying.
When investigators come onto any scene, Okay, you're going to do what's referred to Traditionally, it's referred to as the walkthrough. You're observing the scene initially to get this kind of overview to understand what you're up against. They enter on the ground floor. There's two bedrooms downstairs in a bath. They usend the staircase and land on this second floor, but on the second floor, you've got this kind of great room combination of where the kitchen and the dining
area is. Xena and Ethan were on the second floor. We learned that Xana was laying on the floor of her room in a prone position. They see cast off on the walls. Cast off means a very dynamic environment. So when I teach I talk about blood deposition, imagine taking a paintbrush and dipping it into a bucket of paint and then slinging it over your shoulder, like with a flick of the wrist. The room is not painted
in blood. However, it's almost as if you've taken an instrument, dipped it into the blood, and then thrown it like this, And so the cast off is thereabouts. That's one of the first things that they actually notice other than the bodies. And that's an indication of violence, but it's an indication of the dynamics that the violence. It's not like the
individual that perpetrated this crime was simply stabbing Xana. Okay, Like if you think about the motion of the sewing machine needle going up and down, it's driving the knife in and then with great force bringing the knife back. Okay, So that it literally cast off blood so that it is deposited on various surfaces. Just from that bit alone, in that initial observation, they knew that there was tremendous violence that was going on in here. She's got fifty
plus stab ones. The two to the heart, the one to the right lung, and the rest of them are being described as mostly defensive. If you think about what she's doing and what she's going through, she's trying well. First off, she's trying to survive, but she's putting up a fight. She's trying to get him off of her, trying to put as much distance between herself and him. She knows what's happening to her. And remember, she was awake.
She was awake. I can only imagine the horror you know, that she experienced in those moments.
After Brian Coberger was sentenced, the court unsealed hundreds of pages of investigative documents, some revealing new details about what the police found at the scene that November morning and the extent of the injuries each victim suffered. These files offer a rare and chilling glimpse into the final moments of Madison Mogan Callie Gonzalvez, Xanakernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
After this brutality has been exacted on Xanna and they're bearing witness to it, you move over as an investigator and you see diametrically opposing Ethan's body in the bed. Well, if we are to believe what has been said, he's not moved, he's static in the bed. And listen, early on there were all kinds of wild things flying about. You know, I even heard somebody say that he was found in the doorway. Well, we know that that's a complete fallacy. You know, that didn't happen. He died in
that bed, in that spot. And of course, the level of brutality, and I'm not saying in any what Please don't misconstrue. I'm not saying that Ethan's death was not brutal, because it was. But when you compare the if you're just comparing injuries, what we saw with Xana in that environment is completely different than what we see with Ethan
where he's laying in the bed. There has been an indication that there may have been arterial spray with him, and what that means is that if you and this is a rather robust area where he has been stabbed. And the reason you get the arterial sprays that the heart is still pumping. It's tremendous force. This vessel itself, the CROTD is actually what supplies the brain with blood, and out of all the organs in the body, the
brain demands the most blood. I think that he would probably lose consciousness relatively quickly.
After exiting Xanna's room, investigators make their way to the third floor, where Madison Mogan and Kelly Gonsalvez live.
They go down to Kayley's old room and there's nobody in there. They make their way down to Maddie's room. They observe these two young friends covered in a pink blanket and the blanket is super sad trade of blood. So they had they remained under that blanket or was a blanket placed on them by someone else. I don't have an answer to that. When you look at the injuries that have been revealed regarding Maddie, it's very brief. She only had sharp force injuries. I mean, like sad Ones,
I don't think that she did fight back. We don't have any evidence of defensive injuries on her at all. Merely what they talked about with Maddie is that she's got a left lung laceration and then it migrates from a left lung laceration to a liver laceration. They're only identifying those two injuries. I'll be fascinated to see if
something else came about. But the least amount of damage I think our trauma is Maddie is right there with I think Ethan running a close second in that cond Kaylee bought probably equal to the level that Xana did downstairs. What's so striking about Kaylee, though, is the level of violence that was exacted upon her. She's got multiple stab
wounds all over her body. But I think the thing that really has caught people's attention, and this is you know, kind of borne out relative to what we're hearing now from the Truanta documents, is that there's a tremendous amount of disfigurement. He lingered with her, because you don't just have stab wounds, you've got blunt force trauma. She was traumatized to the point with blunt force trauma that she had hemorrhage that is literally inside of the sack surrounding
her brain. And so you're literally bleeding out in your brain. We do know that she's got signs of asphyxia, which means some way her airway was blocked. She's struggling. She's struggling, and she's fighting while he's trying to perhaps keep her quiet at the same time he's trying to murder her. She's not doing what he wants her to do, and
that is die. She's fighting back, and so that's why you get this disfigurement with the knife being utilized to stab her or the knife being utilized to punch her with. It's in this confusion as well that we think about depositing of the sheath that's found adjacent to her leg, and this furious thing that's going on here. He forgets about the sheath. All he knows is he wants to extricate himself from this environment so that he can put as much distance between himself and the horror that he
has subjected these individuals to. In total, Kaylee had twenty plus stab wounds.
The brutality of Kelly's wounds, you know, which are just awful. Could this suggests that she was the target? You know, I know there's been some speculation out there that Mattie was the target. People think maybe Brian Colberger met her at the Matta Greek where she worked. But after seeing these new documents and just reading about the brutality of Kaylee's wounds, I'm curious of being this changes.
Things between Kayley and Mattie. Guys say I'd list more toward Kaylee because of disfigurement, brutality, blunt force, trauma, suffocation, or occlusion of airway. However, one thing that kind of muddies the waters here is that both these individuals were occupied in the same space, allegedly in a bed together. So you cannot completely discount that this individual who's already being driven by sexual urges and has potential for violence,
has been studying violence. He's going to get mighty angry if somebody's going to get in between him and his actual target. So if you take that same logic and apply it to Kaylee, suddenly she becomes not the target of any kind of sexual motivation. That's pure anger that you're seeing. You've got in the way of what I wanted to do. It may have disrupted the whole damn thing.
He's made mistakes all along the way. You can see where he's trying to commit the perfect crime, but maybe his observational skills were not as keen as he thought that they should be, or that he perceived himself to be. He didn't expect to find her there. But I got to tell you, I don't know that we will ever know.
People can speculate about this all they want, but these two young ladies died in such close proximity to one another that any kind of post mortem data like changes in the body, with Roger mortis and all those sorts of things and post mortal avidity, that data is worthless. You're not going to be able to ascertain anything from that. I don't think.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. Welcome back to the Idaho massacre. We've been reviewing newly released documents following Brian Coberger. Sentencing forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan just walked us through what investigators uncovered about the injuries to all four victims. It's a disturbing
and sobering account. We're now joined by crime analyst Body Moven, an expert in analyzing complex data, along with our producer Alison Bankston to dive deeper into more of the documents released in this massive evidence dump.
So you've been through all these documents, there's just so much to unpack, and you know there's even more to come.
There's a lot in there actually.
Right aside from learning more about what police found that night and the victim's injuries, I also was pretty intrigued by getting more into on Dylan's full statement.
I thought that was very interesting.
As a reminder, Dylan Morton was one of the two roommates who survived the attack. According to the Affidavid, around four am on the night of the murders, she saw a figure dressed in black wearing a mask that covered his mouth and nose. He was outside of her bedroom on the second floor, and she described him as having bushy eyebrows and a slight but athletic build. Dylan froze in shock as the man walked past her and out of the house.
This is so weird. This is very weird. Dylan's statement to Moscow Police Department. She said she believed Maddie and Kaylee arrived home around one thirty or two. She said that nothing weird had happened during the night. She describes being woken up around four anywhere between four and four twenty, which of course is when the event occurs, you know,
in the home. Dylan is insistent, and she says it three times that she heard Kaylee go up the stairs with Murphy and then immediately come back down halfway down the stairs and say someone's here, and then go back up. The police believe Xana is the one who said someone's here. Dylan is insisting it was Kaylee. Dylan said she opened the door when she cried out to Kaylee, then closed the door because she was scared. She said who she thought was Kaylee, but could have been Xana crying in
the bathroom. Dylan said she then heard a man's voice say it's okay, I'm going to help you. Dylan said it was weird because the statement was not in a nice way, and the voice was one she had never heard before. She would have recognized it if it was Ethan. Right, we got some leaked audio from the Dateline episode. Right in the PCA, which is a probable Cause affidavit that we've had for years.
It describes the.
Leaked audio and it says, you know that there's scream, there's like a I can't remember if it says a whimper or scream and then a thud. And when we got the audio from the dateline leak, of course, so I had to listen to it over and over and over again. And I can't help but create what I'm hearing in my own mind. Yes, I can't help it.
Here Ethan help me, and then a thud. And then weeks later we get the document dump and we learn that he says this, don't worry, I'm going to help you, very menacingly, and I can't help but think Ethan helped me, and he catches up to her, don't worry, I'm going to help you, and then we hear the thud and that's Sannah hitting the floor.
Oh my god.
I don't know it makes sense. It might not be, it might not be, you know, but this is the chatter. This is what people are talking about from the document ump. But those two kind of go hand in hand. Ethan helped me, and don't worry, I'm gonna help you. I'm the one that's going to help you. You don't need him. I'm the one that's gonna help you. It's very menacing
and I mean awful to think about and poor Xanna. Okay, so, Dylan said when she saw the suspect, said she believed the suspect was white, but not remember eyebrow, collar or what his eyes looked like. He saw her and just left. Dylan was asked how long she believed it was from the time Kayleie said someone is here to when she saw the suspect. Dylan said she thought it was about
ten or twenty minutes. Dylan said the suspect was between her bedroom door and the kitchen, so he was kind of like walking in that little u turn away from Xanna's room to the kitchen. Dylan said she remembered watching the suspect go out the kitchen door and leave. Dylan said at this time she closed her door and locked it as fast as she could.
She said the suspect did not walk toward her or say anything. I'm terrifying.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. After Dylan Mortensen came face to face with Brian Coburger, a man in black clothing, wearing a mask and walking straight out of her house, she immediately slammed her bedroom door shut and locked it. Terrified and Confused, she texted her roommates to see if anyone else was awake.
Only Bethany Funk responded. Dylan then ran down to Bethany's room on the first floor, still unsure of what she had seen and not fully grasping the horror that had unfolded just feet away. The two roommates ended up falling asleep in the same room. Around eleven am, Dylan texted her friend Emily, asking if she and her boyfriend Hunter
could come over to check on things. She said she was scared that she'd seen a strange man inside the house the night before and still didn't know what was happening. What Hunter saw when he arrived would change everything. Here's crime analyst Body Movin speaking with producer Alison Bankston about what Hunter walked into that day.
Another thing we learned in the documents, the first one. It mentions how Hunter arrives un scene at one one two two King Road the morning the victims were discovered, and he entered the code into the front door and went in and he found Dylan and Bethany in Bethany's room right there at the bottom floor, right where the door is. Hunter said he went up the stairs and immediately went to Zana's room. Hunter said he approached the door, it was only partially open. Hunter said he then opened
it and he saw Xana in the room. Hunter said he thought at first they had been drunk and left a mess. Hunter said when he stood there for a moment, he began to realize what he was seeing. Bethany and Dylan were uncontrollably crying. Hunter said he told them to get out of the house and call law enforcement, something that was massively traumatic. First of all, he took on
all of this alone. Ethan was his best friend, and Emily and Xanna were very close, and they all they were like the the you know double date crew, right, they were always like the couple like Ethan and Xana and Hunter and Emily. I mean, can you imagine finding your best friend in the condition and her girlfriend, who you're your girlfriend is like best friends with. It's just it's tragic.
But Hunter.
Hunter really kept Ethan's dignity intact, do you know what I mean? Like he has really respected Ethan and he's never given any graphic details, and I really respect that from him.
He's never come out and said.
Oh, yeah, you know, there's blood everywhere. You know, he was never he's iver done that. He's really respected at Ethan's integrity, and I think that's he's a friend for forever.
That's so true. He really truly is such a hero. His strength is amazing. His account that that morning also brings up another interesting document.
Right, Yes, when Hunter arrives around eleven am, he said he entered the code to get into the house. But we learned that a witness was walking his dog, and it appears that he works at the University of Idaho because they went to the University of Idaho to interview him. He was walking his dog that morning and it was around eight or nine am, and he saw the front door wide open, and he walked his dog for about an hour, and when he passed the house again closer
to eleven am, the door was still wide open. And it's interesting because we know Brian Coberger went back into the vicinity of the house that morning.
Yes, at around nine am, his phone was pinging in that area.
He was there for nine minutes. Where was he We don't know did he get out. I can't imagine that he got out of his car in broad daylight and walked to that front door, and he doesn't have the coat anyway, so how would he have opened it?
Right?
Right?
But did he go through the slider and come out the front door and leave it open?
I who knows? We do know that he didn't go get the sheet, though, we do know that.
I mean, the timing works there. I think you're right that I can't really like imagine him because he was really stupid of him to go back in the first place, But to get out of the car is like next level.
Yeah. I mean a lot of people think he went back that morning to just look at police activity. We know that he was monitoring police activity on the scanner from the documents. We know that, you know, and he wasn't hearing anything like nothing's going on? Did this did I did this really happen? Did I do this? Or was I was this a fever dream? Did he go back to the house to see if he really had done it? And did he actually go into the home? Wow?
Yeah? And another document made it seem like he maybe had even been in the area before, right, that someone may have seen someone who looks like him there before.
We also learned from the documents that a woman who lives very near the home, saw somebody lurking at her backyard, and it was interesting because of the clothing he was wearing. He was like kind of dressed up a little bit. And we know that Brian Coburger at WSU when he was a teaching aid kind of you know, buttoned up his shirt all the way, you know, from that thumbs up photo exactly.
Yes, as a reminder, Brian Coburger, he took a selfie at around ten thirty am on the morning of the murders and he's all dressed up and he has his thumb up and he's taken his selfie in the bathroom.
Yeah, and she was She's pretty convinced it was him. She's pretty convinced it was him, and she chased him off.
It kind of creepy. Additionally, we learned.
That Kaylee saw a dark figure staring at her from the tree line when she took her dog Murphy out to pete. This occurred about a month prior to the murders.
Ah, it's so creepy because we know his cellphone was in the area twenty three times before the murders. But I always just kind of assumed that he staked his car kind of drove around, but these new stories about him being out and about they'd make it so much.
Cleepier, I know, and it's so terrifying to think that the literal Boogeyman broke into this home.
Throughout this season, we'll continue digging into these documents piece by piece to see what they reveal, what they suggest, and what they can tell us about how Brian Koberger took four innocent lives. Next time, we're turning to newly released records about his time as a teaching assistant at Washington State University and the unusual ways he crossed paths with law enforcement while the investigation was still unfolding, and if these documents are any indication, the story is far
from over. More on that next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at Case Underscore Studios. The Idaho Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leideker, Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toois. Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Massacre is a production of Kat Studios and iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.