Keith Morrison and Blayne Alexander sit down to talk about Keith’s latest episode "The Terrible Night on King Road” which reveals new details about the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students and features never-before-reported evidence, including video, photographic and digital materials. Keith tells Blayne what Dateline has learned about Bryan Kohberger, the criminology student accused of the murder and his apparent fascination with serial killer Ted Bundy. He also shares audio from interviews with the murdered students' families and friends who reflect on the young lives lost. Plus, Keith answers viewer and listener questions. If you have a question for Talking Dateline, send us an audio message on social @datelinenbc or leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. Listen to the full episode of “The Terrible Night on King Road” on Apple: https://apple.co/4iUS7Hv Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/68yl7vps4zDmzOoZOj8hZv
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts discussing the latest Dateline episode?
Hi, everyone. It's Blayne Alexander and we are Talking Dateline. I'm joined by the one and only Keith Morrison to talk about his latest episode, The Terrible Night on King Road. Hi, Keith.
Hi, how are you? And it's nice to see you and hear you too, for those who aren't seeing you.
Good to see you and hear you too, my friend. So before we jump in, if you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So make sure to go there, listen to it or stream it on Peacock and then come right back here.
Chapter 2: What is the background of the 2022 University of Idaho murders?
Now, just to recap, in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in their home. With the trial of Brian Koberger, the man accused of killing the students, now just 12 weeks away, Keith and his team revealed the results of their groundbreaking two-year investigation into this case.
The episode sheds incredible new light on the murders and just what happened that night on King Road. For this Talking Dateline, we want to tell you, of course, a little bit more about who those four students were that were murdered that night through the eyes of those who loved them best. Okay, let's talk Dateline, Keith.
Right.
Chapter 3: How does this Dateline episode differ from typical crime stories?
You know, before we jump into this discussion, I think it's important to note that this episode is so different from the episodes and stories that we typically do on Dateline. Right. Because by the time we get our hands on a story, usually the case is adjudicated. Somebody has either been found guilty or acquitted. And that is, of course, not the case here.
Usually, yes, that's correct. Occasionally, we will do a series of stories, as we have done in this case, soon after a crime occurs, and then kind of follow it through the process as it leads toward trial. This case, every detail is being fought out in court. It's one of which we have had to be very, very careful in the way we do it.
And we understood from the start and continue to understand, and I think everybody needs to understand that In our court system, the man accused in this case is innocent until and unless he's proven guilty. And so everything we report is based on that premise. We have gathered material from extremely reliable sources who we trust. These sources are backed up by other sources.
It's all pretty carefully vetted. We've done our very best to make sure that we're totally accurate. So it's the pure information in this story that we... We're very happy to have been able to report.
Sure. There are a lot of different sensitivities when it comes to reporting a story like this, when it comes to the story that you and your team aired, and even when it comes to our conversation here.
Oh, yes, there really are. It's just something you want to be careful about. That's all that I want to be careful about. So my answers may seem a little cagier than usual. It's not that they're cagey. It's just that I don't want to say anything wrong.
There is nothing cagey about you, Keith Morrison. All good.
Maybe.
You know, let's let's dive in, because I think that another thing that was different about this story is sometimes when we present stories to our audience, this may be the first time that many people have heard about this case. Obviously not the case here. If anybody has followed and consumed any bit of news over the past two plus years.
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Chapter 4: What do we know about the accused, Bryan Kohberger?
It may well be. That's the conclusion that has been reached by experts we've spoken to about human behavior who have looked at that, have suggested that's the most likely explanation.
Speaking of explanations, someone could look at this and say, OK, maybe there wasn't an explanation for this or maybe there was. Ted Bundy was a name that came up a lot in this story. There were a lot of searches related to just for those who maybe need a refresher. Remind us who Ted Bundy was.
Well, Ted Bundy was a prolific serial killer who was killing university students and college girls. But as a character, he has fascinated numbers of people, certainly Kohlberger, but also fascinated some of Kohlberger's professors. Still, it went beyond merely looking up Bundy a lot and being interested in him a good deal.
The messages that he uploaded about whether or not he was normal, whether he ever could be normal in this society, all suggested sort of... That he was feeling that he didn't belong, but also that if he did belong to anybody, maybe he belonged more to the cadre that would be a Ted Bundy sort of character. And again, somewhat amorphous, but that's how it looked.
Mm-hmm. You talked to people who had had what most of us would call just kind of chance run ins with Brian Koberger. I mean, at a pool party. I loved the Ph.D.J. That was my favorite title ever. I would like to go to a party that he's DJing. He seems like fun. Sure. You know, I was very interested, though, that they just kind of had these little snapshots of just little, you know, interactions.
But even from then, it sounded like some of them said, hey, that even that just small interaction was kind of off. It's kind of strange.
Yes, and how much did they think about it at the time? I'm not entirely sure. After after the case became famous and Brian Kober was arrested, all of that stuff came rushing back to them. And I thought, yeah, he was a very odd dude.
So let's let's talk about some of the evidence that you bring forward in this groundbreaking episode. I mean, of course, and we need to say that, yes, this is evidence he's been accused of these crimes. A judge has entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. But in this episode, you lay out some additional evidence that could point to his alleged involvement in these murders.
Most people know how his DNA was found on the knife sheath at the crime scene. That's kind of a famous piece of evidence. But talk about some of the other pieces of evidence that came out here.
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Chapter 5: How did Bryan Kohberger’s interest in Ted Bundy influence the case?
Right.
But, The defense may well be able to point out that you can't really tell exactly what kind of car it is. You see these headlights. You can tell it's a white car. That's about it. Our FBI profiler and the psychologist who looked at it both said, oh, he's just kind of stealing himself. He's getting ready. He's saying, can I do this? Can I do this? And then... Then he decided it was time.
Maybe I can't. Maybe I can't. Maybe I can. Maybe I can't.
One of the things that I thought was an effective piece of storytelling and reporting in this, Keith, was this animation that your team put together to kind of spell out how your investigative sources believe this crime took place. And I have to say, for a lot of our, you know, our audience who only kind of consumes these stories via podcast and doesn't actually look at the episode, go back.
This is one that you need to go back, find on Peacock and actually look at this animation because it tells us a lot.
It was a complicated situation. The house isn't laid out like most houses would be. And the killer would have come in basically halfway up the house and then immediately made a beeline up the stairs to the house. Top floor where Maddie Mogan maybe slept.
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Chapter 6: What insights do acquaintances provide about Bryan Kohberger?
One of the experts that you spoke with also talked about social media intel that that one would have gathered. Right. That, you know, the victims, young ladies posted a lot on social media. All of these strange things that one wouldn't necessarily think of could have been actual clues to help the killer understand the layout of this house.
Right.
which is very chilling. When we get back, Kaylee was spontaneous. Maddie was an old soul. We're going to play some clips from interviews with family and friends of the four victims to get to know them a little bit better. That's when we get back. The texts between two of the surviving roommates show that they knew something was wrong. They were upset.
They were trying to figure out what was happening. Yet it seems that it took a long time for 911 to be called.
Which has been a source of speculation and accusation ever since this occurred. And it continues to be. They never did call 911 until hours and hours after this occurred. And people wonder why that is so and what they're hiding or whatever. The one young woman who did – several points about this.
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Chapter 7: What new evidence does the Dateline episode reveal?
The one young woman who did see the killer and who talked about him having bushy eyebrows, which is a very important point that the prosecution intends to use in this case against Brian Koberger, who has bushy eyebrows. You can certainly see them in that selfie he took soon after the killings. The other one is why they didn't call or do anything for so very long. Right.
The fact is that they had been partying and partying virtually all night long. So it's unclear exactly what was going on in the house. But it's reasonable to assume that these two very young people hear this commotion upstairs, see some evidence of a terrible thing having occurred, but are not prepared in their minds to believe it could have actually been a terrible thing.
You know, you can't really that doesn't happen. So you're not going to believe it. You see somebody lying on the floor. Well, I've seen people lying on the floor after parties before. They're always, you know, they passed out. It's just it's a little more understanding, understandable that they would have gone on for so long.
If there's one thing that I've learned in my so far brief time with Dateline, it's that no matter in all of these stories, we never know what we are going to do or what anyone will do when confronted with a scene like this coming upon someone that they know or that they love that has been brutally killed. We don't know what you would do, what I would do, what any of our audience would do.
And you can speculate all you want, of course, but you certainly don't know until you are faced with such an unimaginable moment. And so shock, who knows? It's easy to kind of look and say, oh, call 911, but you just don't know what one feels in that moment.
I'll tell you about one little minor incident that occurred where I had a car broken into, smashed the windows. But in the course of time, between the time I made that call to the police and the time they arrived- I did all the wrong things. And yet I'd been for decades doing these kinds of stories where I knew what the right things actually were to do. But you lose yourself.
You just don't think rationally for the first couple of minutes unless you really are, you know, you say right away to yourself, okay, I've got to be rational and record this properly. So, you know, I'm looking through the bushes. I'm messing about with things. I'm inside the car rummaging around doing all the wrong things.
And, you know, so eventually the police said, well, you know, there's not much we can do about these things anyway, but especially now.
Especially now. You've made it even more difficult. We spoke earlier about these four students, and I'm going to say their names because... We want to dedicate some time to hear from their family, their friends, those who knew them best about just who they were.
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Chapter 8: How does the animation help explain the crime scene and timeline?
They were headed for good careers. And all of them cared deeply about their families. And so they were the kind of kids you would be proud to have. I think that's about the best I can say about them because I didn't know them personally. But that certainly is what others have said about them.
Well, let's listen to some of their family and friends. Let's listen to some of the people who knew them best.
I loved Kaylee. She was honestly such an amazing friend.
Kaylee, she was very competitive. She was very spontaneous. You could wake her up in the middle of the night and say, hey, pack your bags. We're going to Mexico in the morning. And she would be like, are you serious? Let's go.
So Maddie was the youngest out of the friend group because those girls were very, very tight knit. But Maddie just, she was always, she always seemed to be like the oldest of the group. She just had a very old soul. Just super smart and intelligent and very wise for her age, I would say.
I miss her potential and her sweetness and this grounded energy that she really made people feel seen and like what they were doing mattered and made a difference.
Zanna was beautiful. She was always smiling. There's this video we found where she's just spinning in a 360 with this huge smile. And you just want to know that person because she was just full of life.
I just want people to remember Ethan as someone who would put a smile on your face.
You know, when we do stories like this, I think that all of us can kind of identify with this being on the cusp of stepping into life, right? Yes. This kind of the excitement, the sense of excitement, being on the verge of realizing your potential.
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