The Terrible Night On King Road

29:06Six weeks before the murders on King Road, Brian Koberger's life seemed stressful. The new acquaintances who were avoiding him, who found him strange, the undergrads in his classes who were complaining about him, the colleagues who found him difficult. At the end of September 2022, the dean asked to see him to discuss norms of professional behavior. Retired FBI profiler Greg Cooper has observed similar patterns of distress often in cases that end in murder. These are what we refer to as precipitating stressors and triggering events. On September 30th, as phone records reveal, Kohlberger googled sociopathic traits in college student.

29:51If an individual is starting to notice that they're having a hard time having feelings towards other people, he might try to look it up and understand it to make sense out of it. Forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Brucato. Now, you do have somebody who is studying criminology, so it's entirely possible that he's reading about it because he's learning about offenders. But it's impossible to say. Impossible to say what was in Kohlberger's mind. But those FBI records may hold clues. They show Kohlberger's phone popping up three more times in the first two weeks of October, hitting the cell tower within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road in Moscow.

30:33Again, all after dark. Telling a story, said Dr. Brucato. And based on his training and long experience, he speculates this way. One imagines a predatory animal in increasingly small loops around the victim, moving closer and closer, building up one's nerve. Have you seen examples of this sort of behavior? Other examples? It's very typical of men who are motivated by sexual fantasy. It looks pretty motiveless and strange, like a random targeting of a house. but it has to do with that the person that is living inside has caught your eye as filling the role perfectly of your fantasy. We don't know how any of the women in that house caught Kohlberger's eye, or if he stopped during any of those drives of his near the house.

31:23But if he did... You'd expect that he went to the backyard, for example, and possibly looked through the window. Murphy, you've been a bad boy! Certainly it would not have been difficult to see the women, or even study them, or the house, based on their almost constant posting on social media. The other possibility, of course, is that you're using things like TikTok videos, because for people like this, everything is intel. You know, there's a door there. There's a lock. Look, there's a dog. The window's open. Look at what time of day it is, and there are people there, etc. And it's all about fact-gathering.

32:00You guys, it's eight. Gotta go. And Cell Records Dateline has obtained show that at the same time, in early October, a month before the murders, Kohlberger was still browsing images of women from WSU and the University of Idaho on his phone. Google searches were made for pornography containing the keywords drugged and sleeping. Then, October 14th... Hello, I am Officer Llangus. Brian Koberger was pulled over for the second time in seven weeks, this time for running a red light on the WSU campus, a stop captured on police body cam. You're not supposed to block an intersection like that in Washington.

32:41Koberger was courteous, explained he was from out of state. Yeah, where I'm from, Pennsylvania, we actually don't have, like, crosswalks. I'm just curious about the law. I don't mean to... Oh, no, yeah, I can find it for you. Yeah. I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law. I wasn't trying to like... No, no, no, not at all. Like, I understand you're not from here. She was very professional. She didn't challenge him. She didn't make him feel subordinate to her. Have a good day. Five days after that traffic stop, Kohlberger googled these words. Can psychopaths behave pro-socially?

33:15He's researching. He's understanding, becoming more familiar with psychopathic characteristics. Was this search related to schoolwork or his own sense of self? We don't know. But then he Googled his own name four times in a span of 13 days. As November began, he took this photo of a snowy parking lot outside his apartment. And then, on November 2nd, 11 days before the murders, he had a meeting at WSU to discuss what was called an improvement plan. He got into a confrontation with one of the female students. He approached her while she was at her car, and she did not like the vibes he was sending off.

33:59That incident was reported to faculty. And then, on November 7th, in cell phone tower data collected by the FBI and obtained exclusively by Dateline, an agent found that Kohlberger's phone again connected with that cell tower, showing he was within 100 meters of the house at 1122 King Road. And that made it a total of 23 trips to that very same area in the four months before the murders, all after dark. Then, according to prosecutors, Koberger stopped using his debit card on Thursday, November 10th, and the next day, the 11th, began employing what the state's experts call anti-forensic methods to clear evidence from his school computer.

34:44The weekend ahead would be one no one would ever forget.

35:01Saturday, November 12, 2022. On the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, it was game day. The Vandals would be playing football. A photograph was in order. At the house just off campus at 1122 King Road were Maddie Mogan and her lifelong friend Kaylee Gonsalves. Kaylee was close to graduation and had already moved most of her belongings out of the house, but had returned that weekend to show off her new Range Rover. The others? Santa Cernodal and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin. Chapin didn't live in the house, but often stayed over. and two new roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funk.

35:45And there might have been at least one more face in that photo if Maddie's best friend Ashlyn Couch had her way. Ashlyn had graduated a few months earlier, moved out of the house, and to save money, moved back to her parents' place in Coeur d 'Alene. But that weekend, her parents were out of town, and they had asked a favor of Ashlyn. So we were supposed to come in Friday night, and our flight actually got in on Saturday night because I rerouted our trip. And so you asked her to stay? And she had to stay an extra day to watch the dogs. How did she feel about that? I mean, she was bummed because it was a big game day.

36:25Has ever a favor asked by parents turned out to be such a godsend? Kickoff for senior day was 4.02 p.m. Touchdown, Idaho! The game ended at 7.12. And less than an hour later, across the state line in Pullman, Washington, Brian Koberger was on his phone. At 8.08 p.m., records obtained by Dateline's show, he was watching YouTube. Then around 9 p.m., Kaylee Gonsalves posted that group photo on Instagram. And in what would be the last social media post of her young life, Kaylee wrote, One lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day. That Saturday night, Ethan and Zanna were attending a party at the nearby Sigma Chi fraternity.

37:17Kaylee and Maddie went to hang out at the Corner Club in downtown Moscow, arriving sometime after 10 p.m. Three and a half hours later, at 1.37 a.m., the two women left the bar together, walked a couple of blocks to a place called the Grub Truck, and got some food, as you can see in this video. Welcome back. At precisely 1.49 a.m., one of the women called for a young fraternity member who'd been assigned to help drive home upperclassmen and women to make sure they arrived safely, a ride of little more than a mile. They got to the house on King Road at 1.56 a.m. Roommates Bethany and Dylan also got home around 2.

37:59Zanna and her boyfriend Ethan would return shortly. And starting at 2.26 a.m., Kaylee and Maddie made a total of 10 phone calls to Kaylee's former boyfriend. A half hour later, at 2.54 a.m., a cell phone in neighboring Pullman was turned off. It was the cell phone belonging to Brian Koberger. 32 minutes later, at 3.26, a car that authorities identified as a white Elantra and called Suspect Vehicle 1 was detected in the southeast corner of Moscow. At 3.30 a.m., security video from a neighboring house, obtained exclusively by Dateline, shows Suspect Vehicle 1 turning toward 1122 King Road just off camera.

38:49Three minutes later at 3.33 a.m., the car was back, again passing the house. Then again five minutes later at 3.38. and at 3.40 a.m. And then back on King Road at 3.56 a.m. And 3.58 a.m. All this leads me to feel it was an internal battle. He had made up his mind at some point earlier to commit these crimes. By 4 a.m., most people inside the house were in their rooms. Some were asleep. But not Zanna, who about that time received a food order from DoorDash. Then at 4.06 a.m., something definitive seemed to be happening. The car traveled west, performed a U-turn at the intersection of King Road and Queen Road, and headed back toward the house.

39:41At 4.07 a.m., the car drove in one last time, approaching the house at 11.22 King Road. So now it's time to go in and do this.

40:05It was just before 4.07 a.m., and pitch dark. The white car caught in these images obtained exclusively by Dateline, a car that had been captured on video for some 38 minutes on the streets around 1122 King Road in Moscow, had gone off-camera and apparently parked nearby. Inside the car, police believe, the driver and a knife with a seven-inch blade, the Marine Corps fighting K-Bar. What was going through the mind of the person carrying that knife? Dr. Bruccato can only speculate, based on his years of study. My sense is that it was a culmination of a life where over and over again you're being rejected and you're being knocked off a pedestal.

40:50You say, that's it. It's time to enact the fantasy. To illustrate what might have happened inside the house on King Road in the minutes that followed, we had this animation built. It's based on the recollections of former residents and court records, police affidavits, real estate, and social media images of the house. And we've also spoken to sources close to the investigation who gave us their theories of what happened. Sometime after 4.07 a.m., The killer entered the house on the second floor through an unlocked sliding kitchen door and went quickly and directly upstairs to Maddie Mogan's bedroom.

41:28Sources close to the investigation have told us that is one of the reasons they believe Maddie was the killer's target. But almost certainly to the killer's surprise, he discovered that Maddie was not alone. Kaylee was sleeping in the same bed. Something happened that hadn't been planned on. The killer attacked anyway. There was a struggle. It was noisy. Multiple sources close to the investigation speculate that Zanna, downstairs in the second floor kitchen on TikTok, heard thumping and went to investigate. The killer must have heard this, our sources said, and turned his attention away from Maddie and Kaylee and began chasing Zanna.

42:10And in that kind of chaos, this thing gets dropped. the thing being the sheath for the kebar knife, the one found on Maddie's bed. Those same sources have told us that, with the killer in pursuit, Zanna desperately tried to reach her bedroom where Ethan was sleeping or was possibly passed out. But as she reached the bedroom, the killer was on her. But one source described as a hell of a fight ensued. At 4.17 a.m., 10 minutes after the suspect car turned in toward 1122 King Road, The security camera on that neighboring house picked up sounds, including what police described in charging papers as distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper, followed by a loud thud.

42:58Here are those sounds.

43:04A dog began to bark. As if something was wrong. Then, multiple sources close to the investigation told us, Hosanna either dead or dying, the killer saw Ethan in bed, possibly passed out after a night of drinking. And with one swift blow of the knife, blood spatter shows, the killer struck an artery. When you're dealing with crimes that are motivated by anger toward women, the men that are in the way are rapidly dispatched. And then, according to our sources, the killer did something strange. He carved Ethan's lower legs. Carved is the specific word that was used. If you view that person as having gotten in the way of what it is you're trying to play out, you might be overwhelmed with anger toward them and do something extra.

43:57And I think it's a clue that there was a sexualized component to this, because this was about women. There was a special anger toward that male. It looked like the killer sat down after that, said an investigative source, and left behind impressions in blood on a bedroom chair. He's exhausted. He's gone through four people. People that commit mass murder don't anticipate the adrenal exhaustion that's going to overwhelm them when they do it. But as he left the bedroom, intending to exit through the same kitchen door where he entered, the killer was surprised again by another roommate. Dylan Mortensen had heard various unexplained noises that night, and at that moment opened her bedroom door.

44:42After hearing a noise, she said she thought was crying coming from Zanna's room, according to a police affidavit. She's bothered by the noise. She opens the door and sees this individual coming down the hallway. Later in charging papers, police said Dylan told them she heard a male voice say something like, It's okay, I'm going to help you. And saw a male in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. She said he was 5 feet 10 or taller, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. She said the male walked past her as she stood in a frozen shock phase.

45:22If she had said one word, if she had screamed for help, if she didn't find the moment too overwhelming, I think she would have been killed too. But she was not. Dylan said the man walked away while she locked herself in the bedroom. She knows something's wrong. She's under the influence of alcohol. She's between being awake and asleep. He would have probably assumed that she was about to call 911. He better get the hell out of there. Definitely. His primary objective now is to get out of there and not to get caught. And here, at 4.20 a.m., is Suspect Vehicle 1 as it bursts back into the range of that security camera.

46:02At a high rate of speed, the car raced toward the intersection, turned right, and disappeared from view. This car left in such a hurry, he almost hit somebody. Yep, that's right. He's panicking. If he was, he wasn't the only one.

46:32As suspect vehicle one careened out of the King Road neighborhood at 4.20 a.m., Dylan Mortensen was still locked in her bedroom, making calls to roommates. Calls that would never be answered. But for whatever reason, she did not call 911. Downstairs on the first floor of the house, Bethany Funk was also making calls to Zanna and Kaylee. 422. Dylan texted Bethany. No one is answering. I'm really confused right now. Dylan texted she saw someone wearing a ski mask almost, also something over his head and mouth. I'm not kidding, I'm so freaked out. Then Bethany to Dylan, come to my room, run, down here.

47:20Dylan left her room and began running toward Bethany's room downstairs. On her way she noticed Zanna lying on the floor of her bedroom, with her head toward the wall and her feet toward the door. Dylan thought Zanna was drunk, she would say later. After Dylan reached Bethany's room, the two roommates continued trying to text and call the victims upstairs. No answer. At 4.48 a.m., 28 minutes after the white car left King Road, FBI records show, a cell phone turned on south of Moscow and hit a cell tower that covered an area west of Blaine, Idaho. A phone that records show was tied to Brian Kohlberger.

48:03The signal moved west, and 32 minutes later at 5.20 a.m., the phone hit a tower near Johnson, Washington, until finally at 5.39 a.m., the phone connected to a tower covering the west side of Pullman, Washington. And it was in Pullman, records obtained by Dateline show, that a call was made from that phone, linked to Brian Koberger, using a tower not far from his apartment. The time was 6.17 a.m., nearly two hours after the killer sped away from the murder scene. The call lasted 36 minutes. Two, a phone in Pennsylvania registered to Brian Koberger's father. It appears that several family phones, including his mother's, are on the same account.

48:50In fact, records show that call was the first of three calls Koberger made to the phone registered to his father that morning. The longest call lasted 54 minutes. We reached out to the family for comment, but we didn't hear back. Meanwhile, back on King Road, by 7.30, three hours after the murders, Bethany was awake and calling her dad. By 8.05 a.m., Dylan was, at least briefly, back on Instagram. And at times throughout the morning, she continued to reach out to her roommates by text and on social media apps. Still, no answer. Just after 9 a.m., records show Brian Koberger's phone was briefly back in Moscow, and not far from the crime scene, for about nine minutes, before returning to his apartment, where at 10.31 a.m., he took this selfie in his bathroom mirror.

49:45The prosecutors released it seven weeks ago. Reaction was immediate, and worldwide, much like this. There's a shower behind him. He's now into new clothes, and now he's celebrating. He talked about looking into the mirror and seeing himself as a nothing. And then after these crimes, he's giving a thumbs up, which implies now he's somebody. And notice it's a mirror. It's a reflection. I'm somebody in the eyes of other people. And an hour after that selfie was snapped, But records show that Brian Koberger's cell phone hit a tower serving the towns of Clarkston and Lewiston, 34 miles south of Pullman.

50:28Police theorize he could have been disposing of evidence. A knife, perhaps? Or possibly clothes worn during the killings. And then there's a river down there near Lewiston, so... That's right, a very likely place that he could have discarded it. It would be very difficult to retrieve that. Back in Moscow, midday was approaching. More than seven hours after the murders, neither Bethany nor Dylan had called 911. The only explanation that I can find for that is cognitive dissonance. It's just too overwhelming. They can't process it in any rational way, so they behave in a way that's irrational. Dylan's story?

51:09As court records show at about 11.50 a.m., frightened, she called a friend and asked her to come over. The friend brought her boyfriend, and he and Dylan and Bethany started to walk up the stairs. When they reached the second floor, she said, she saw Zana again for a split second, started bawling, and thought Zana, quote, was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor. But the boyfriend had apparently seen more. He told Bethany and Dylan to get out. He was pale white, told them to call 911, she said, and mentioned something about someone being unconscious. Bethany dialed 911 at 1156 a.m. 911 location of the emergency.

51:53Hi, something is happening. Something happened to no help. We don't know what. What is the address of the emergency? 1122.

52:06The 911 call is absolutely harrowing. It's clear that they were totally shocked. You can see how they're overwhelmed by this event. An unidentified female speaker stepped in to help. The address, 1122 King Road. One of the roommates has passed out and she was drunk last night and she's not waking up. Okay. Oh, and they saw some man in their house last night. Moscow police were there within minutes and found, in the silent bedrooms, carnage. On the second floor, Zanna, lying in what one source close to the investigation called a massive pool of blood, Ethan dead in their bed. Upstairs on the third floor were Maddie and Kaylee, still together in a bloody bed.

52:52All four had been stabbed to death. And then the awful news raced around the college and around the town and to Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn. Ashlyn, who would have been there that night with Maddie and the others, but had to stay home instead to watch the family dogs. Ashlyn's mom, Angela. What was that like? It was a pain inside that you can't really explain how your body's feeling. And then knowing that the pain and fear and everything that I saw in my daughter was, it was just like my house stopped. Yeah. Just stopped for months. How soon was it that you thought, my God, she was going to be there?

53:38I didn't think about that right away. All I could think about was the kids. But she just cried in her bed. She didn't want to talk about it. We just cried together for a long time. Makes you sad, too, doesn't it? It does. Sorry.

54:00Blindsided, too, that day was Maddie's former boss, friend katie widmire my heart dropped and i really didn't believe it at first it just really didn't seem real um but then following up with that just the lack of information quite clearly created so much terror in our community that yeah people you know i i didn't know how to act i was never a gun owner in that instance at which someone could come into your home it really changed my mind about that Things changed that day. No doubt about it.

54:52Moscow, Idaho. November 14th, 2022. The day after. By now, the public had heard the names of the victims of the killings on King Road. Maddie, Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan. There were no words big enough to describe the shock or the anger. Young women don't deserve to die at all, but pursuing an education in a place where they felt like they were safe. The job facing the small force at the Moscow Police Department was monstrous. Right away, they called in the FBI and Idaho State Police. But they'd quickly found an important clue. The killer had left behind a knife sheath, like this one, on the bed where Maddie and Kaylee were killed.

55:36A sheath, as investigators soon learn from these records they received from Amazon, that was identical to the one Brian Koberger bought months before he'd even moved to Washington. And two days after the murders, on November 15th, those records show, Koberger was back on Amazon at 4.34 a.m., looking at gay bars. He even clicked buy now and began the checkout process before exiting. The next morning, Koberger googled the words, University of Idaho murders, apparently for the first time. We know you have questions, and so do we. That same day, Wednesday, three days after the murders, police finally held a news conference.

56:16We will do everything we can to solve this. Thank you. On November 18th, five days after the murders, Kohlberger's browsing history showed a program with the title card, The Perfect Killing Machine, Ted Bundy, Serial Killer. After, he watched a YouTube video about the King Road victims. There are plenty of questions and very few answers. Then, also on the 18th, state licensing records show that Kohlberger went to the DMV and replaced the Pennsylvania plates on his white Hyundai Elantra with plates from Washington State and took these pictures of his car and the new plates. Welcome back. The eyes of the nation are on the Idaho quadruple murders.

56:59And over the next six weeks' records show, photos and videos and news updates about the King Road murders were viewed or saved on Kohlberger's phone at least 60 times. He was collecting everything, all the reporting about the incident. It's very common. By November 22nd, nine days after the murders, the Idaho State Police Laboratory had isolated DNA found on that knife sheath left in Maddie Mogan's bed and sent it to an outside lab to try to find the identity of the donor. That same day, as Amazon records received by investigators show, Kohlberger searched for a utility knife sheath and a K-Bar leather sheath, but again made no purchase.

57:43It was around the same time, as revealed by court papers, that Koberger looked into deleting his Amazon account activity. A week later, as November came to a close, these selfies turned up on Koberger's phone. He also watched a program about Ted Bundy with photos of Maddie and Kaylee. And then did a Google search of his own name. In early December... Guys have all heard about this quadruple murder. Kohlberger was still watching videos like these. Original Night Stalker. And these about infamous serial killers. And after midnight on December 6th, the record show was searching Amazon again, this time for a K-Bar knife and a sheath.

58:29So whether he was planning to be able to show, if anybody came around to see him, that he actually had a sheath for it and he couldn't have been him who dropped it. Or maybe you don't think you're going to get captured and you're thinking about doing it again. That same week, authorities told the public to be on the lookout for a car similar to the one Koberger drove, a white Hyundai Elantra. By December 10th, the DNA on that knife sheath had been checked against profiles in the two smallest genealogy databases, which have only about 2 million samples. No match. So, the FBI uploaded the DNA profile to another platform with millions more possible matches.

59:12This database was used even though its terms of service prohibit law enforcement from using customer data. Genetic genealogist CeCe Moore. Several years ago, the Department of Justice put together guidelines that they would like us all to follow, including federal employees like the FBI. But it's not a law. These are guidelines. They are suggestions. And so if a federal employee is the one doing the genetic genealogy or if an agency is getting federal funds, they are supposed to follow that. But it's not a final law. So in this investigation, the FBI skirted its own policy. And so the FBI decided that this was a big enough threat to public safety and that there was an urgency.

1:00:03And so they got clearance to upload to the MyHeritage database certitiously. MyHeritage has 9 million donors. As the FBI worked to narrow down the pool of suspects by using that genetic genealogy, Brian Kohlberger's father flew from Pennsylvania to Washington to accompany his son on the drive home for the holiday break. And during the course of this ride, as it's been explained to me, the father starts getting suspicions. They're looking for a white car. My son drives a white car. Indeed. He lives 10 miles away from the murder scene. He has emotional problems. Could he be involved in this? On December 15th in the early morning hours, Koberger watched a video on his phone containing this quote.

1:00:51It read, Something is wrong with me. I can't be who I need to be. Something is wrong with me. Will it last for eternity? It doesn't fit in to society. Then, later that morning, How you doing? How y 'all doing today? the Kohlbergers' father and son were pulled over in Indiana. He was right up on the back end of that van. Not once, but twice. For following too closely. Just make sure you give yourself money. Okay? Three days after the Kohlbergers arrived back home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, the FBI had traced the DNA on the knife sheath to a geographic area, the Northeast, then to a family, the Kohlbergers, and finally settled on a likely suspect in the murders on King Road, Brian Kohlberger.

1:01:42Later that week, two more selfies of Kohlberger in a black hoodie showed up on his phone. And as Christmas came and went, a source close to the investigation has confirmed his family noticed he was acting oddly. He's sorting his garbage. He's wearing gloves. And one of the other family members, his sister, comes up to the father and says, in effect, Dad, Brian could possibly be involved in these murders. Kohlberger's father and entire family were in for a terrible awakening.

1:02:27December 27, 2022. Albrightesville, Pennsylvania. Investigators needed a sample of Brian Kohlberger's DNA to see if it matched the sample found on the knife sheath presumably left by the killer in Maddie Mogan's bed. So, under cover of darkness, they grabbed some trash outside the Kohlberger home, flew the sample to Idaho, and tests showed there was a high probability it came from the biological father of the person who left the DNA on the sheath at the crime scene. That same day on Kohlberger's phone, a clip was played from a YouTube program called Ted Bundy, The Essence of a Psychopath. My name is Ted Bundy.

1:03:10Later, Kohlberger dressed in a black hoodie the same way Bundy is pictured on that program, took two selfies. Then, two days later, on Thursday, December 29th, just before midnight, Brian Koberger pulled up a song on his phone by Britney Spears. The title? Criminal. He is a killer just for fun, fun, fun, fun. He listened to an edited version that had been slowed down and posted on YouTube. He's got no conscience.

1:03:46It seems highly unlikely Brian Koberger knew, as he listened to that song, that a special tactical team was nearby, watching him. And at 33 minutes after midnight, the snipers on that team reported seeing a man in a black hoodie turning on a light and entering the kitchen, and then, observing the man going to the garage, returning and wearing rubber gloves, handling a plastic baggie. And then, about 1.14 a.m., Brian Koberger's world came crashing down. The police come bashing down the door. They break windows. They tie zip ties around his parents. And then he's let out, and he gets in the back seat of the patrol car, and he says, well, you know, maybe we should get a cup of coffee when this is over, as if he thinks this is going to have a happy ending and life is going to go back to normal.

1:04:40Brian Kohlberger was under arrest. The news was breaking. Just moments from now, police in Moscow, Idaho, will hold a news conference. Coverage worldwide. It's the breakthrough their families have been desperate for. You saw pictures of him when it came out. What was your first reaction to it? I think I just thought he was a nobody. Like, I think that he was someone who the girls probably would never have noticed. Which is maybe the problem. Exactly. Hours after Kohlberger's arrest, Pullman police served a search warrant on his apartment. Police department search warrant! And 51 days after four murders sparked a manhunt and left a small university town frozen in fear.

1:05:26Brian! Brian, did you do it? Brian, did you do it? Brian Koberger was led into a Pennsylvania courtroom for an extradition hearing. He was flown back to Pullman, Washington the next day, and then took a drive, familiar to him by now, to Moscow.

1:05:48Then Koberger appeared before an Idaho judge, a mere mile and a half from an active crime scene he stood accused of creating. He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder. and one count of burglary. Do you understand? Yes. Months later, a judge entered a not guilty plea on Kohlberger's behalf. But when the state announced it would seek the death penalty for Kohlberger, the process slowed to a crawl. And as the community waited in limbo, the house on King Road became a shrine of sorts, a must-see for visitors to Moscow, until the university tore it down last year. Well, this is a huge story around the world.

1:06:31Yeah. But what about locally? What about at home? I think at home we really ignore it a little bit, and there's just a little bit of a hands-off. Like, they don't know what's going to happen, what's the fallout, whether or not justice is going to be served. And it was in the name of justice, Kohlberger's defense team said, that a motion was filed to move the trial from Moscow to Boise in search of an impartial jury, a motion the judge granted. And so Idaho State Police flew Brian Koberger south to await trial in the Ada County Jail. Koberger's trial will be the latest high-profile case moved to Boise from more rural parts of the state, the others being the trials of Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell.

1:07:19Both were convicted in connection with the murders of Daybell's first wife, Tammy, and Vallow's two children. Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood got those verdicts and knows what it will be like when Corburger's trial begins this summer. What's the pressure on you as a prosecutor in such a huge case that so many people are watching? You certainly feel it when Dateline's doing shows about your case. You feel it when Netflix has a special out. And it certainly adds a different dynamic than what we're used to. Do you have any advice for the prosecutors in the Kohlberger case, knowing what you went through?

1:07:58I guess the one bit of advice I'd have is, you know, when you see all the cameras rolling and the people lining up, you just kind of put it out of your head and just go do what you got to do. And when the trial starts, what Brian Kohlberger's defense will want to do is create as much doubt as possible. And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects, that should cause you some questions and concerns.

1:08:37The Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho. This is where they'll try him, starting with jury selection on July 30th, barring delay. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and for potential jurors, that means an extra set of questions. In capital cases, jurors are questioned on their beliefs on the death penalty. Drew Simshaw is a law professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. The court wants to know, would this juror be open to all of the potential punishments that are on the table, be it life in prison or be it death? So if it's determined that a juror would not be able to faithfully and impartially apply the law at the sentencing phase, they would be excused from the jury.

1:09:23And so, those left will serve on what's known as a death-qualified jury. There's concerns that these juries, in weeding out certain potential jurors, would have fewer women, fewer African Americans, fewer people of certain religious faiths that tend to be opposed to the death penalty. Your jury is going to look less representative of the general population. It's going to be more white males, and it's going to be more people who are prone to convict. So what kind of people will each side want on that jury for a trial that may last at least three months? Well, I would be looking to put on the jury as a prosecutor people who can follow a lot of detail.

1:10:01Former Idaho Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Dave Leroy has been practicing law in the state for more than 50 years. I want people who have a penchant for organizing large bodies of information into understandable patterns and themes. And for Brian Koberger's attorneys? I'm looking for jurors who might be disinclined to believe law enforcement. I want people of great human empathy, great human conditions who were inclined to be skeptics. About, perhaps most of all, about that K-Bar knife sheath. The one that Amazon Records show Koberger bought eight months before the murder and which the state will allege he left behind in Maddie Mogan's bed.

1:10:43That sheath could become the very centerpiece of the trial. The smoking gun. Unless it isn't. Your Honor, we're here because the state has alleged that a single piece of evidence ties Mr. Koberger to this case. In pretrial motions, lead defense attorney Ann Taylor asked the judge to exclude evidence that Kohlberger's DNA was found on the sheath. She claimed it was inadmissible because the FBI, as you'll recall, went outside its own guidelines on investigative genetic genealogy to zero in on Brian Kohlberger. Your Honor, our position is that the court should suppress the IgG identification and everything that flows from that.

1:11:31Cordelaine defense attorney Jill Bolton is not involved in the case, but explained the argument this way. So in this case, they have a policy. We don't go into private DNA databases without a warrant, right? But they did. Why did they do that? Well, if they didn't have a warrant to go into that database, it's likely because they didn't have probable cause. But Judge Stephen Hippler disagreed. He ruled that the genetic genealogy evidence will be treated at the trial as just another tip that pointed investigators in the direction of Brian Kohlberger. So, the defense will move on to another argument.

1:12:10What the defense is going to do is saying, yeah, we'll concede that there's a match on the DNA, but the real question is, how did the knife sheath get there? How did the DNA get there? Implying, of course, that Kohlberger's DNA on the sheath was either planted or transferred somehow. The judge has ruled that he will allow a state expert to testify that the DNA on the knife sheath was the result of direct transfer, meaning Kohlberger himself likely touched the sheath. But the defense is expected to counter with arguments like this. DNA is great at telling us who the original source of some material was.

1:12:52It doesn't tell us anything about how it got there. Dr. Greg Hampikian, the former director of Idaho's Innocence Project, has testified as a DNA expert for decades. There's been a number of studies done that show that DNA can be transferred from object to object to object. You can't tell how many times it's transferred. You can't tell when it transferred. But you can tell who it originally came from. And that's what DNA is great at. And then the defense will almost certainly argue, again and again, that no evidence except that knife sheath links Koberger to a very bloody crime scene, to which the state will argue.

1:13:35How could he have gotten out of there and they found no blood in the car? Surprising to a lot of people. Well, it is. I've got a case in another state. The bedroom is the crime scene of a double homicide. It looks like a butcher shop. And there's no way that the individual would have been able to remove themselves without being immersed in a lot of blood. But there's not a speck of blood on the outside of that room. So does it happen? Is it possible? Absolutely. And as for what's possible? Just last month, the defense revealed in court that it is looking into new information, which may point specifically to another killer.

1:14:16We came across a tip that would appear to be an alternate suspect. We don't know anything about this possible new suspect, but the state may have given the defense a little ammunition by never testing unidentified blood samples found on a banister inside the house and on a glove found outside. And by the state not identifying it, they said they couldn't put them through CODIS. They didn't seem to make any effort to track down who these bloods could have belonged to so that they could have dismissed them. but it now allows Coburg's defense to raise the specter of, ha-ha, there were other people there that night.

1:14:56Spokane, Washington defense attorney Derek Reed agrees. He's not involved in the case, but he's been keeping track of developments. So as a defense attorney, what I'm doing is I'm saying, they don't want you to have that answer because it topples their house of cards. And once you know that there are potentially alternative suspects, that should cause you some questions and concerns. When they want to take somebody's life, all of your questions should be answered. Especially perhaps about the young woman, the apparent witness, who later looked at a picture of Brian Kohlberger and said, I have no idea who this is.

1:15:34Oh boy. On such questions, a trial can turn.

1:15:44There's always more to the story To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Keith and Blaine, available Wednesday.

1:16:02There was a time in American courtrooms when an airtight case for the state meant simply this. To hear former Idaho Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General Dave Leroy tell it. When I began prosecuting cases 50 years ago, a dead-solid, locked, perfect case was one fingerprint and one eyewitness. How things have changed. And in the Koberger case, there is one eyewitness, all right. Dylan Mortensen, the King Road roommate who opened her bedroom door that night and later told police she had seen a man in black clothing with bushy eyebrows walking past her as she stood frozen in shock. A man who then left the house while Dylan locked herself in her bedroom.

1:16:47Prosecutors will use that thumbs-up selfie Koberger took hours later to show the jury what his eyebrows looked like at the time of the murder. But there is also this, the sort of thing defense attorneys dream of. Dylan was interviewed by the police four times. The first one, she brings up caviar. She says, I was drunk that night. She said, I was sort of in a dreamlike state. And then she's shown a mugshot sort of photo, and she says, I have no idea who this is. Oh, boy. It's giving the defense evidence that they can take to the jury and raise questions. Remember, too, that Dylan said the man was wearing a ski mask.

1:17:27The state has more evidence, of course, including the security video of suspect vehicle one and the fact that Koberger's phone was turned off during the time the murders occurred. about which the defense is claimed. That's his alibi. He was out driving around at 4 o 'clock in the morning looking at stars on a cloudy, freezing night. We cannot know, of course we can't, what a jury will think of the case against Brian Koberger, or whether the state can prove that the orgy of violence perpetrated on Matty Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, Zana Kernodil, and Ethan Chapin was his doing. But this? This we do know.

1:18:09I mean, the stakes here are enormous. The whole world is still watching, listening, and following this. And if Koberger is convicted? Prosecutors will offer reasons, aggravating factors, they're called, that those crimes deserve the death penalty, that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and exhibited utter disregard for human life. The defense will try to save Koberger's life with factors that mitigate or weaken the arguments for death. Which, if it comes to that, might be more difficult here than in other states. Idaho supports capital punishment overwhelmingly. Defense attorney Derek Reed.

1:18:51I suspect that the wishes of the victim's family were paramount, which any prosecutor has to take into consideration. It's true. Kaylee Gonsalves' family has been vocal in its call for Kohlberger to face the death penalty. If attacking somebody while they're sleeping in their bed isn't a probable cause for you to be removed from the planet, what does? The defense asked the judge if it could argue that Kohlberger's autism spectrum disorder is a reason that he should not be subject to the death penalty. Idaho defense attorney Jill Bolton. Just as you can't decide that someone should be put to death based on their race, so too should you not make the decision to put someone to death based on their disability.

1:19:37And autism is a disability. And you have a jury that's going to be watching his reactions. And if he has a flat affect with no emotions as a result of autism disability, then the jury should know about that. And they should take that into consideration before making such a decision. But the judge ruled that Koberger's autism can only be brought up in court if Koberger takes the stand and testifies. If Koberger is found guilty, and if he is sentenced to death, both big ifs, well, then he would become the tenth person on the state's death row, but the first, sentenced after the governor this spring, signed a law that makes the firing squad its primary mode of execution.

1:20:25though the likelihood he'd face a firing squad anytime remotely soon is nearly nil. Gonzaga University law professor Drew Simshaw. The appeals could take decades, so inmates can spend decades on death row. Ended up dying of old age anyway. Some might. Some might. Of course, there's always talk that a trial might still be avoided if Kohlberger would agree to plead guilty in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty. But that's mere speculation, given what Kohlberger's attorneys have said. From what I understand, this is a not guilty, I didn't do it. From the outside looking in, a win is avoiding the death penalty, potentially a hung jury, and hoping that you may be able to work something out to avoid the death penalty in the long term.

1:21:17Understandably, defense and Mr. Kohlberger are probably of the position that there's only one victory and that's not guilty. That's a tough road to hoe. A tough road. That's an understatement for what life has been like for all the families of the victims the last two and a half years. The ripples, as always, extend. In this case, to so many, including Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn. Is it true that Ashlyn is sort of unwilling to come home because of where you are in proximity to the area where this happened? So she moved away. Yeah. She just needed to get away and regroup. She wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew who she was, didn't ask questions.

1:22:01She could make new friends, start a new life. But do you hope she gets to the point someday where she's more comfortable to come back home? What do you think it'll take? I'm not sure. I think that once the trial is over, I think that that's really when you're going to be able to start grieving the right way. Took quite a hit, didn't she? Yeah, she's not the same. One terrible, terrible night in a small college town. Part of the history of the place now. Always will be, no matter what happens to the case against the criminology student who came to town, authorities say, with a knife in his bag.

1:22:47There's nothing that will ever take that pain away, but maybe after the trial, they'll have more better days than bad days.

1:23:02That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.