Ep. 5: Unresolved

0:00Turning down King Road now, looking at 1122, it looks completely different. All of the windows now are boarded up. The door is also boarded up. It's a little scary looking now. On one of my last trips to Moscow this past May, I returned to the house on the hill. There's an actual fence that has been erected around the house. There's still some caution tape, but growing up through the caution tape, you can see these yellow daffodils. When we were here before, you could imagine people living here. You could imagine people going in and out. You could see the front door. You could see the wreath on the door.

0:48You could see the neon in the house that said good vibes. You could see Maddie's pink cowboy boots in the window. But now, all these things, these signs of life, are gone. Hidden by plywood, returned to the families, or carted away as evidence. In the weeks after the murders, there was a constant stream of media trucks coming here, with bright lights, big tents. There were reporters doing live shots, sometimes blocking the road to the point that residents couldn't get into their driveways. And it didn't take long for the people in the neighborhood to make it clear they'd had enough. You'd see signs on doors that read, No comment, and Don't park in our driveway.

1:38Their lives had been turned upside down. I'm actually watching a student walking to class right now wearing a pink backpack. I mean, imagine what it's like for her having to walk past this house every day. Walking by this boarded up, fenced up crime scene.

2:01But soon, it won't be a crime scene anymore. The house on King Road is set to be torn down in a matter of weeks. And a lot is churning in Moscow. I'm Kena Whitworth, a correspondent with ABC News. Moscow is trying to move on from the murders. Trying to find its way back to being a place that's more than this one terrible thing that happened here. But there's also a date on the calendar that's going to challenge all that work, all that healing. October 2nd. That's when Brian Koberger's trial is scheduled to start. In this episode, the last of our first season, we'll look at key evidence prosecutors will use to make their case against the defendant.

2:50And for the first time, thanks to new documents Koberger's lawyers have filed in court, we'll look at his defense strategy and how they hope to keep him off death row. We'll also spend time with the victims' families and members of the Moscow community to ask, how do you move on? And can you? When a trial is around the corner, one which will surely throw this small town back into the national spotlight. This is the King Road Killings, Episode 5, Unresolved.

3:32When Brian Koberger goes on trial for four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary, the jury will hear two conflicting stories. In court documents, we can begin to see the case the state will bring against him. You've heard about the evidence laid out in the probable cause affidavit released in December when Koberger was arrested. Remember the knife sheath found at the crime scene? The prosecution will allege it contained trace DNA from Koberger. Remember the white Hyundai Elantra? They'll point to surveillance footage law enforcement obtained of a car, the same make, model, and color as the one Koberger owns.

4:12They'll say it was seen near the King Road house around the time of the killings. And they'll bring forward records allegedly showing that his phone traveled to Moscow that night. And remember the surviving roommate who told police she saw a masked man inside the house in the middle of the night? Her description of a male, 5 '10 or taller, with an athletic build and bushy eyebrows? They'll point out that roughly fits Koberger. All this evidence, it adds up to a strong case against the defendant. That's according to ABC legal analysts and former California homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy. He has tried about 250 cases, including eight death penalty cases and the Golden State Killer case.

5:01I've gotten to do a lot of high-profile murder cases over the course of my career, and I can't think of too many where I had more evidence than this. Murphy points out that in addition to the DNA, the Elantra, the physical description from the roommate, the prosecution will have more evidence to present in court. Remember, they searched Brian Koberger's home. And in that, there is going to be evidence that we don't know about yet. According to a search warrant, the evidence from Koberger's apartment in Pullman, Washington, included a computer tower, a disposable glove, multiple hair strands, the dust container from his vacuum, and stains from a pillow and a mattress cover.

5:43In fact, the prosecution has collected so much material in this case, photographs, recordings, phone records, they've turned over 51 terabytes of data to the defense as part of discovery. And remember, as of last week, this is now a death penalty case. There are some states where the death penalty is technically legal, but it's not actually used. In California, for example, there's a moratorium on executions. So Murphy says the death penalty is symbolic there. I don't envision we'll ever see another execution in the state of California. But facing the death penalty in Idaho is far more serious.

6:28Idaho is different. The Supreme Court, as well as the governor, it's a very different political landscape. Idaho's last execution took place in 2012 by lethal injection. It's one of five states that has recently brought back firing squads if lethal injection drugs aren't available for execution.

6:50So what about Koberger's defense? What will they present to the jury? Well, we haven't been able to speak with anyone on his current legal team because of the Idaho court's gag order, which prevents attorneys involved in the case from speaking with reporters. But we now know from court filings that not only does the defense maintain Koberger is innocent, but they say he has no connection to the victims in what authorities have long called a targeted attack. And just like the prosecution will try and use DNA to prove guilt, these documents show the defense will use that same DNA to try and prove innocence.

7:31In fact, the documents reveal something new and striking about the DNA in this case. Three unidentified male DNA samples were also collected from the King Road house. Samples the defense says haven't been linked to Koberger. Two samples were found inside the house. Court documents say near where the victims were located. And a third male sample was found on a glove outside the home. Koberger's lawyers say they aren't aware if any testing was ever done on these samples. And they raise the question, if there was other unidentified DNA at the crime scene, why was there such a laser focus on Koberger's DNA?

8:15Did the prosecution do their due diligence on any other suspects? Based on DNA evidence, could someone else have been the killer? Maybe another one of these unidentified males who left their DNA at the crime scene? Koberger's lawyers are requesting all of the DNA profiles developed during the investigation, as well as all of the state's genealogical records that led them to Koberger. They allege that by withholding these records, the state is, in effect, hiding their entire case. It doesn't look like it, but that that says Chiagen on it, that's an extraction robot. Because DNA will be so central to this case, my producer Timmy and I recently paid a visit to the Idaho State Crime Lab in Boise.

9:06As we said before, over a hundred items from the King Road home were sent there. This is, keep in mind, this is a DNA database unit. Matthew Gamet directs the crime lab. He explained how they extract DNA using a machine that looks like a small espresso maker you might have on your kitchen counter with an ATM keypad on it. You'd never expect the fate of so many high stakes cases to hang on this small, unassuming device. Gamut showed us around the lab somewhat reluctantly. You guys are going to rue the day when you decided to come to a forensics lab. We have so many accreditation rules and oversight entities and things that we're just, we're very skittish.

9:51Super sensitive. Super sensitive. The lab can't talk about the evidence in this case specifically, but they can talk about the kind of DNA analysis they do. So you're going to take a cheek swab, you're going to blot it onto FTA paper. They'll put them in these instruments. It takes a punch, literally like a paper punch. Okay. and it'll put it down into a tube of liquid. We'll put it on that instrument, and it extracts the DNA from the card. And when it comes to presenting this kind of evidence to a jury, it has to be airtight. In a forensics lab, we don't bring anything online until we have developmentally validated it, meaning we've put it through its complete paces, that we know it works in our hands, that it's scientifically sound, that it's robust.

10:38We have to defend all of these things in court. The example we just ran through, extracting DNA from FTA paper using this extraction robot, it applies to reference samples. Like when you collect DNA directly from a person, say a suspect in custody, to either confirm they were at the scene or eliminate them. You swab their cheek, collect a good amount of cells, and test those cells. It's a similar process if you find hair or blood at a crime scene. You can test it and potentially determine who that sample came from. We've seen this on legal and police dramas for decades. But when you find trace amounts of DNA on a surface, like a knife sheath, it's a little different.

11:29And that type of DNA evidence might not stand up so well in court. To begin with, trace DNA, or touch DNA, is easy to transfer. Somebody takes my toothbrush and wipes it on the Statue of Liberty, it looks like I was there. Greg Hampikian is an expert in forensics with Boise State University. He's also co-director of the Idaho Innocence Project. He's testified in court about the fallibility of DNA evidence and has gotten convicted people exonerated based on his testimony. DNA is great at telling us who. It is terrible at telling us how. It can't tell us how DNA got somewhere. And touch DNA is not as much of a smoking gun as other types of DNA.

12:23It often comes from skin cells, which generally contains lower levels of DNA than, say, blood or semen. That makes it harder to determine who the sample came from. Koberger's defense will raise lots of questions about the touch DNA and how it got there. The defense will be interested in examining how likely is it that this DNA is transferred from something else, something innocuous. So, you know, if I owned a piece of leather, a belt or a knife sheath or something, and I sold it at a tag sale, it would still have my DNA on it. And there's another potential weak point for the prosecution's DNA argument on the King Road case, the chain of custody.

13:12Remember how the FBI said it first matched the DNA on the knife sheath to Brian Koberger's father and then ultimately to Brian? Well, there were several steps to making that match. The knife sheath first went to the Idaho State Crime Lab in Boise, the one I visited a few weeks ago. They were able to extract DNA from the sheath and then sent a sample of the DNA to a lab they contract with in Texas for more sophisticated testing. One of my law enforcement sources told me authorities hand-delivered the DNA sample and that it was guarded the whole time. But even still, every move that DNA made will be scrutinized in court, and so will the possibility of human error in the testing protocol once the sample made it to the lab.

14:00Remember that the DNA that we present in court came ultimately from a swab or a test tube. People mix up tubes. People process evidence at the same time with a swab sometimes from a suspect. Well, now you have these things close together. So if I spill some of your DNA or I copy your DNA and spill some of the copies on an instrument that I later use to process evidence, it'll look like you're in that evidence. And it slip ups like that, he says, the defense will be looking for. The defense points out that hundreds of members of law enforcement and forensic technicians have handled the evidence.

14:41They asked the court how anyone can be sure Koberger's DNA arrived on the sheath from the defendant himself when so many others had the opportunity to contaminate it. From the defense point of view, we're not looking at the knife sheath. We're looking at a series of actions that resulted in a DNA profile. And anywhere along that chain, there could have been transfer or contamination. So they'll look at that carefully. Especially when they're processing hundreds of pieces of evidence at that lab with this case. And so was it planted? Was it transferred? Was it a direct contact from a killer? You can't tell.

15:22And any DNA expert who tries to testify that they know how DNA got somewhere is not telling the truth. We anticipate the defense team will question the other evidence, too. Like all the video footage of the white Hyundai Elantra seen driving by the King Road house the night of the killings, the prosecution's affidavit doesn't say that Brian Koberger could be seen driving the vehicle. In all that nighttime footage, is any of it good enough to reveal the driver? We don't know. In the recent filing, Koberger's lawyers question whether the killer's car was an Elantra at all. They say precisely how the police came to believe the car was an Elantra is still unknown.

16:09The cell phone data isn't a slam dunk for the prosecution either. As we know, authorities say records show Koberger driving from Pullman to Moscow the night of the murders and turning his phone off and on. This kind of cell phone data is considered too broad to convict someone. It'll be picked apart as not precise and specific enough to place the defendant at the scene. And another thing that could raise doubt for the jury, the timeline that the cell phone pings and surveillance video create is surprisingly tight. According to the affidavit, police believe the killings happened between 4 a.m. and 4.25 a.m.

16:53But there are two other timestamps that make that window even narrower. Zanna's DoorDash food delivery arrived around 4 a.m. And her phone data showed she was on TikTok around 4.12 a.m. The white Hyundai Elantra is then seen driving away from the King Road house at a high speed, again according to the affidavit, at 4.20 a.m. That leaves just eight minutes to commit a quadruple homicide and escape. Two minutes per victim. And we know some of the victims had defensive wounds. They fought back. If Koberger was in fact the killer, would he have had enough time to commit these murders?

17:48Former homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy says, in addition to raising procedural questions about how evidence was obtained or how the trial is being conducted, the defense will likely also be focused on how they present their case and how Koberger comes off to the jury. Because now that the death penalty is on the table, the defense's ultimate goal will be to keep their client alive. That means at trial, Murphy says, they'll do their best to preserve their credibility with the jury. Because if they go all in on, Brian Koberger wasn't there, They run the risk, and it's a very real risk, of alienating themselves to the jury that's already rejected them.

18:29If Koberger is convicted, the same jury will decide what his sentence will be. Does he deserve to die? Murphy says the defense will want to make sure they haven't created any ill will toward Koberger in the way they argued their case. And then, once it's time for the sentencing hearing, Koberger's lawyers will present anything from his background that could possibly be seen as sympathetic. I think that where we're going to see the most effort from the defense on this is I believe they'll call Brian Koberger's family to talk about how he's a voted son, that every nice thing he pretty much ever did, and it may have some sort of sympathetic effect.

19:10Murphy says this is where they'll bring up Koberger's alleged struggles with mental health, drug addiction, or any abuse he suffered. These things could come into play as mitigating circumstances. And remember, they only need one juror. So if one juror feels sorry for him or somehow, you know, feels that drug addictions are a horrible thing, that may impact one of them. And I think that's where we will see the defense going. I've had the opportunity to talk with some of the families of the victims to hear what they'd like to see happen if Koberger is found guilty. Some of them don't like to talk about the crime or the defendant.

19:49But Ben Mogan, Maddie's dad, says a life sentence might be punishment enough. Life in prison is no easy task, and he's still pretty young, so that would be a lot of years. And that's a lot of days to have to think about how terrible of a thing you did and how many lives you just ruined and how many people were affected by this.

20:18Kaylee's parents, Steve and Christy Gonsalves, see it differently. What is justice for you two? Swift, fast, you know, but the truth. I want the right person to be held. I don't want any scapegoat. I want it to be the right person. I want it to be clear. I want the whole community and everyone to agree that that's a guilty person. Those kids did nothing, nothing to deserve what happened to them at all. And his life needs to be taken. He took lives and he needs to die. That's justice for you. Yes, the death penalty. He chose Idaho, so Idaho has the responsibility to stand by and say, you know, if you wanted to come here to do this, well, then we're going to do this all the way to the very end.

21:20As the trial draws closer, victims' families and the larger community grapple with another open question. what should become of the once beloved house that became a grisly crime scene?

21:57Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. Everywhere in Moscow, there are reminders of what happened here. Pulling back up to our hotel, it was really our home away from home while we were here. And they still, on the windows, have four candles, one for each of the victims. And above it, it's written, Vandal Strong. So that has not changed since November. Right in front of the King Road house, in plain view of the keep out and no trespassing signs, there's a makeshift memorial to the victims. There are old dried flowers, stuffed animals, and a picture of Zanna, Kaylee, Maddie, and Ethan.

22:44Ethan was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. That frat house is within sight of the King Road home. I spoke with Gus Elwell, the current president, and Reid Ofstun, the former president. Is it hard to see that house every day? Yes, it's definitely weird being able to see the house from our, like, right outside my room. I mean, especially at the start, it was just like, wow, it's right there. I don't even really want to look to my right. I don't want to look that way, you know. Yeah, sort of averting your gaze constantly from your own bedroom, from your own house. Oh, yeah, that house, practically, I'd never see it anymore just because I don't look that direction, really.

23:21And, you know, I'll go see friends over across the street. But that, for some reason, it's like that just blocked out of my mind. I don't look there anymore. The young men told me a lot of parents of new pledges have asked about safety on campus. And the fraternity is working to fund security upgrades at the house. After the murders, the perception of safety shifted in this town. Some Moscow residents went into high alert. For like a month, I was dragging my couch in front of my front door before I went to bed. And like, sleeping with like, all of my guns hidden in my room. Ben DeWitt is going into his senior year at the U of I, and will be the news editor of the student paper next year.

24:04He says he was really scared after the murders, but that once police arrested Koberger, his fear more or less dissipated. I went out and celebrated just because with a suspect in custody, just a small sense of normalcy could return to Moscow. The sense of physical danger has eased, but there's still an unsettled feeling. People here tell me they're locking their doors now. And I know that might sound ridiculous. But locking doors was not a thing people did hear before. Local journalists have stayed on the story, like Julie Scott, who you've been hearing from in this podcast. Julie's a retired journalism professor at the University of Idaho who lives in Moscow.

24:55Every time something happens in this community, whether it's a hearing, the grand jury indictment, any kind of document that is released or anything having to do with Brian Koberger opens up those wounds again. Again, it's like a, it's a scab that gets picked and it bleeds. And that is what this community continues to feel. Hard as it is, people in Moscow are trying to move forward, at least as much as they can, with a big trial looming. Here's Ben DeWitt again. I think something this community wants really bad is for all of this to be over and go away and so that the people here don't have to, you know, it's not shoved in their face.

25:56And, you know, the trial is scheduled for October 2nd. That's just a week before the University of Idaho's big homecoming weekend. It's scheduled to take six weeks. And just attention to the case, it's going to be all over TV, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook. It's going to be all over everything. And, you know, almost a year later, people are going to have to be reminded of the tragedy. Ava, a good friend of the victims, who you've also heard from before, says she doesn't want their deaths to color everything people know about the town. Moscow is the safest place I have ever felt. It's just home. Do you still feel like that?

26:49I would like to think so. And I do believe this is still my home. And just because this had happened, I still have to live here. people still have to go to work, people still have to go to school. And I think it's important for everyone to just know that Moscow was an extremely safe place to be. And just because of this one incident, I don't want Moscow to be portrayed in a really bad light.

27:23While the town tries to go back to normal, what does moving forward look like for the victims' families? As I've covered this story, I've been reaching out to the families of the four victims and following their leads on what, if anything, they're willing to talk about. I want to hear their stories about who their children were, hear about their full lives, not just their last day. I want them at the center of the stories I tell. Each family's boundaries are totally different. And what I notice is that they're all moving forward in the way they think their kids would have wanted. In April, another family was ready to talk.

28:08Now to the University of Idaho murder case. The family of Ethan Chapin, one of the four students killed in an off-campus house last November, is speaking for the first time. Kena Whitworth has the story. Good morning, Kena. Yeah, George, good morning. Jim and Stacey Chapin say they've been receiving supportive messages from people around the world. I went and met them at the tulip farm where Ethan spent his summers working to see how they're honoring their son's memory. I flew to Seattle and drove up to the Skagit Valley. It is field after field of brilliantly colored tulips surrounded by mountains.

28:43Jim and Stacey Chapin met me at Tulip Valley Farms where Ethan worked. So he has his own little find. Yeah, let's go take a look. Which is super cute. We walked out to the tulip fields to see a yellow and white bulb mix. It's called Ethan's Smile. It's named for the thing nearly everyone I talked to mentioned about Ethan. His bright smile. Ethan's tulips had just started blooming. So you can see, look at, see the yellow tulips? Yeah, there they are. Those are Ethan's tulips. Yeah, that's cute. But they weren't yellow yesterday. No, they have popped up today. Okay, so... Moments before our interview, something happened that Jim and Stacey say now happens all the time.