The Megyn Kelly Show
What To Expect From Bryan Kohberger's Defense at Trial in 2025 - A "True Crime Christmas" Special | Ep. 973
Thu, 26 Dec 2024
Megyn Kelly's "True Crime Christmas" series continues with a deep dive into the upcoming Bryan Kohberger trial for the quadruple murder in Idaho, and is joined by Howard Blum, author of "When The Night Comes Falling." They discuss the new location and trial date in 2025, the defense's likely strategy to poke holes in the prosecution's case, the "Brady evidence" that could come into play, the questions about the use of genetic genealogy, tensions between FBI and the local Moscow police, the reality of "phone pings," how the "confidential source" could come into play, and more.Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on goldHome Title Lock: Go to https://HomeTitleLock.com/megynkelly and use promo code MEGYN to get a 30-day FREE trial of Triple Lock Protection and a FREE title history report!Learn more about the Durbin Marshall Credit Bill: https://GuardYourCard.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and today's true crime Christmas special. Hope you and your family had a great Christmas. And now you can relax and unwind with the latest on the case of the alleged Idaho murderer Brian Kohlberger.
I don't know why true crime is a getaway of sorts, but it kind of is. It just takes your mind off of what's going on in your own life, the to-do list that's constantly humming, and lets you focus on something else that's serious that requires attention, and in this case, a bit of a mystery too. There's a lot to dig into with Howard Bloom.
He's the author of the book, When the Night Comes Falling, which includes much of his extensive and amazing reporting on this case. The big news is a trial is scheduled and it's now just months away. We'll get into that, plus all the avenues the defense is likely to employ when it comes to genetic genealogy, cell phone pings, and much, much more.
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Protect your savings with Birch Gold. Text MK to 989898 and claim your eligibility for free silver today. Joining me now, Howard Bloom. Howard, great to see you again. All right, so we now finally think we have a trial date and that this thing is gonna start August 11th, 2025.
It's been moved to Boise out of Moscow and they're estimating it's gonna take till, I mean, they got very specific, November 7th, August 11th to November 7th. That's all that can change, but it's been moved. And it's finally set. It's taken forever. I know the families, some of them, are annoyed that it has taken this long to finally get a trial date.
And I predict this one will probably be pushed, too. But now we have a new judge. Judge Judge is gone. And Judge Hippner, I think, is in. Hippler. Hippler. Hippler. It's like very close to the other name that sounds just like that, I've got to say. And so where do things stand? How do you like where the defense is at this point so close now to potential trial?
What the defense... has to do at this point is to raise as many questions as possible. I say that even though every time the defense appears in the courtroom, Ann Taylor, the lead defense attorney, makes it a point of putting her arm rather internally even around Koberger and saying, I believe 100% in his innocence. And yet what she has to do, the dialectics of her case is to raise questions.
And unfortunately, for anyone who believes that Koberger is guilty, as I do, there are a lot of questions she can raise. The first one is, the Brady evidence, evidence that should have been given to the defense has not been given to them. This involves the forensic genetic material. They have not gotten all of it. They had to go to court. The prosecution was holding back.
Why the prosecution would hold back on this immediately raises questions. What are they trying to cover up? This is America. Give them everything. Let the jury see everything. given an excuse for the jury to have any doubts, but they've only given back some of it. What specifically they've given still remains under seal.
But I think this genetic information that the defense has is going to raise questions about when and how did the authorities know about Kohlberger?
One of the attorneys... This is big. Just to set this up. you broke this in airmail, as we mentioned in the intro, where you write. And it has to do with the knife sheath, the one piece of DNA evidence that we know of that was found in this case. And what we know now is that what they say is they found the knife sheath, they had it tested for DNA, and
They found touch DNA on it, which is legit, but not like the best. And they were able to get a hit in some DNA database that brought up the name Kohlberger, in particular Kohlberger's dad. And they could say this was the DNA of the killer's father. So they're claiming that was when that's what, you know, eventually brought us to Kohlberger. That's sort of where we thought it was.
And then they tested his DNA and they say, and that made it clear it was Kohlberger. But you're saying not so fast. There may have been some shenanigans along the chain.
And it's not just me saying this, it's what the defense is saying. The defense is saying, well, if you actually did it the way you've explained, got the information that way, share everything with us. Tell us what the FBI did. The FBI, to add to this, confusion is not even giving everything to the prosecution, or at least that's what the prosecution is saying.
They're saying, well, we don't have everything from the FBI. Now by law, the FBI is supposed to preserve all their genetic investigation. Has it been destroyed? Is it missing? Or, and this is what the defense is looking for, is there something they're trying to hide? What could they be trying to hide? Well, it comes down to this.
When you're doing this investigation where you're trying to build out a family tree, you can only go to certain genetic databases. The other ones are precluded by law from allowing the legal authorities to get into them. Did the FBI go into a database where they shouldn't have? That seems to be a question that they're trying to cover up. And ultimately, it comes down to,
was Kohlberger, one of the attorneys involved in the cases, compared it to as if they took him into a lineup and it was a rigged lineup. They knew he was guilty to begin with. They already had the man they were looking for. This also comes back to something I wrote about early on.
I've said that when Koberger and his father left Washington state to go home for Christmas, they did this on December 12th. I said the FBI were following them.
The FBI- You were like the only person who had that report.
I had it first and it was picked up by others, repeated by others. The FBI to this day denies that they were following him. Now, why this is so interesting. I've covered lots of stories. The FBI usually doesn't comment, usually says, well, we're not going to comment, wait till trial. This they've been vehemently denying it. And why are they denying this? Because I think
The only way they could have been doing this, the only way they could have been following him is if they had accessed information that they should not have. And the fact- All right, let me just stop you there.
Let me stop you there so we can walk the audience through what you're saying step by step. That was just a shot from a police body cam of them getting pulled over, which they did, was it three times? Three times, right?
Twice, twice.
Twice, okay. Twice, sorry.
Which is amazing in itself. I mean, you couldn't make that up.
No. So they got pulled over when they were driving. This is post the murders. Brian Kohlberger is driving with his dad cross country back from Washington state to the Poconos, Pennsylvania. And they got pulled over not once, but twice and let go, um, with just, you know, a warning to obey the traffic laws.
And you reported that the FBI was following him, was watching him during this trip that at one point when he left Washington, uh, state, he, they lost him and they had to retrieve him or find him again. Thanks to like the easy pass data that, you know, it can track the cars and they did find him. Yeah. License plate reader. And so your report was very specific.
It wasn't just like the FBI knew who he was. So it's logical they were following him. You, you were reporting a no, no, they were following and they had a real decision to make about whether to intervene when the local cops with whom they did not coordinate were
genuinely pulled him over for two traffic violations it was very specific howard yes i mean could you imagine you're the fbi you're following this guy who's your person of interest in a murder case and suddenly you see him being pulled over and you don't know how he's going to respond if he is indeed guilty well he could you know and if he is indeed the murderer of four people something could happen to this police officer this highway patrolman
who's trying to stop the car, or the car could take off. You could have an OJ chase across America. But the FBI makes this decision to hang back because one of the reasons they decide to hang back is because what they're doing is secret. They have not even told the Moscow police, who are their partners in this investigation, that they already have this person of interest.
They don't reveal to the Moscow police until a week later, until after the Kohlbergers get to Pennsylvania. And why are they doing this? What are they keeping secret? They're keeping secret that because of their zeal to catch a monster, they may be played fast and loose with the rules on DNA acquisition of certain websites.
And that's what they're trying to- All right, now wait, stand by, stand by.
So because you say you accurately point out, and I think the audience has a good enough feel to know this, the FBI, you're right, they never give statements. I mean, when does the FBI ever come out and say, we deny we were there? They say nothing. They let us as media people pound sand, do absolutely like twist. They don't need to confirm or deny anything.
It's kind of the way the DOJ operates, same related organization. So on your story, though, and with all due respect to you and airmail, you've owned the story, but like it's not exactly like it was on the cover of The New York Times and they kind of, you know, felt like they had to. they could have blown you off, but they didn't. They come out and they're like, it's not true.
We weren't following him, which in a way is more telling than if they'd said nothing. And so now you go to what is it? Why would they do that? And then we have to go back on the timeline to figure out why they might be feeling squirrely about Howard Bloom's report that they knew Brian Kohlberger was their suspect. And they knew it well before the,
They now say they knew it, which was the end of December. Now they want us to believe they didn't have him until the end of December. But you're reporting they had him much earlier than that, thanks to the genetic genealogy and how they made the ID is where...
the big questions coming not not you i know the defense is saying this the exact dates i mean the fbi has said they identified him on december 19th he became a person of interest and that was because of uh car license plate readings and then they still hadn't done the dna yet
I am saying that on approximately December 11th, that's when they first got aware of Kohlberger and everything else followed. It was the DNA that led the case and allowed them to track everything else down. And you see in the public affidavit at the time of the arrest, there's really no mention of the investigative genealogy work that was done.
And the prosecution would like to keep this all out of the case. They say it's irrelevant to how we made our case. But the defense, and I think that's a really good case, is saying, show it to us. What are you keeping secret? Why are you hiding this? And it's all going to be about confusing jurors. When you don't- No, wait.
I want to just keep this linear line going so people can follow because it's complex. This explains so much because when the case was first unfolding, we were all reading the Howard Bloom updates in airmail like it was your college admissions letter. It was like, you couldn't wait for it to hit. Refresh, refresh. And You reported the genetic genealogy.
We were hearing, yes, they got him thanks to genetic genealogy and DNA. But NBC News had this explosive dateline right around that time in which Steph Gosk, who's a good reporter... reported that, no, they got him. She wasn't disagreeing with anybody specifically, but she was saying, we've got the, how it went down.
They got him thanks to identification of the white Hyundai Elantra that some eagle eyed cop who was at the university of Washington, where he was a TA said, saw that this was the car that they were looking for, and just on his downtime, started searching files and found that they did have somebody at the University of Washington.
And we do believe that this all happened, but what actually led to the identification of Kohlberger and when is what we're trying to get to here. and said, aha, there's one. Let me pull up the description. And there's a guy with bushy eyebrows, which had already been released. So this guy's like, this is great. I'm going to send this in.
So he sends in the tip or contacts somebody, tries to at the FBI to say, I think I might have somebody you should look at, but that they had a big, big stack of white Hyundai Elantra Elantra's and it took them a while to get to it, but then they did get to it and boom, that's how they eventually figured out it's Brian Kohlberger, bushy eyebrows, eagle eyed guy over at university of Washington.
And now it seems in retrospect, this is my opinion that that very well may have been the FBI telling her that, but Or Moscow police, which didn't know about the FBI, saying, no, that's how we found him.
And I would agree it was the Moscow police. The report is sent on the white Honda that the Washington state police, they sent it to Moscow. And what they do is they stick it in their file basically. And it sits there for several days until they get around to it. Then the FBI begins following him. And then the decision is made to get the confirming evidence they need.
This is just days before the arrest around December 27th, they steal garbage from the Koberger home, and that ties it to his father, but not to Koberger directly. The only direct DNA evidence that the prosecution has that was willing to admit on Koberger comes from after he's arrested. He's in the jail cell.
The first thing they do is take a cheek swab of the DNA, and then they compare that to the DNA that was found on the knife sheath. And that's when they're convinced they have their guy.
Okay, but before that, when they're still, because yet the audience remembers there was all sorts of pressure on law enforcement to produce the suspect. Who did this crime? Four beautiful, promising Americans were killed on this university campus in the middle of the night. their throats slit, they're stabbed to death within moments.
I mean, the whole crime took between like 12 and 18 minutes at most. And who was it? Who was it? How, why don't they have a suspect? A lot of pressure on law enforcement. And the suggestion by the defense seems to be the FBI understanding and feeling that pressure. when it should have been limited, we've had CeCe Moore who invented genetic genealogy.
She's the one who came up with this amazing technique, which has solved a lot of crimes that she told me directly, you are only allowed when you're pursuing these leads to access this public database of DNA. So if you go and you, let's say you go to 23andMe or you go to ancestry.com or any of these public companies, and you want to get your genealogy and you give them your DNA,
They're not allowed to share that with anybody. But if you say, share with everybody, or if you go upload your DNA on this public database, then that's different. Some people really want it to be everywhere. Some people are looking for their birth mother and their adopters. They want it in as many places as possible. You're using a website, not 23andMe, not Ancestry.com, called GEDmatch.
And my understanding is the way you populated this GEDmatch, because you point out you need as many samples on there as possible, is by encouraging people who are into this, who would like to connect with other relatives, to take their 23andMe, their Ancestry.com results, and upload them to GEDmatch to widen the chances that they'll connect with somebody.
Right, so GEDmatch was started by two friends of mine, Curtis Rogers and John Olson back in 2010, 11. And of course, when it started, there was no one in there. So we had to convince people to download their raw data from one of the other sites which at the time was just 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA, and upload to GEDmatch.
And so it was just a small site, kind of a playground for more advanced genetic genealogists. It was where we could try out new tools. We could do cross-company comparisons. So if you tested at 23andMe and I tested at FamilyTreeDNA or later Ancestry, we could both upload there for free and then compare our data looking for those long identical shared segments.
The public database is more limited in some ways than those private databases, which are more protected. And she was saying, you know, it's kind of a frustration that you can't get into those privates, but that's the way it is. You're limited as a genetic genealogy, genealogist to this public database.
The suggestion here seems to be maybe an overzealous FBI crossed those lines and not, I don't know with which company, but crossed those lines in a way that they are not allowed to do.
Yes, and that's what the defense is trying to get. And what's so interesting to me, and again, I'm a layman, I'm not a lawyer like you, but usually if you have your case, you give everything. Give the prosecution hands over everything. Let it all be out there. Let's not make an issue for the jury. Let them decide. Why are they holding this back? What are they holding back?
They want to keep the investigative genealogy part of the case. of the case out of the trial even. They say, all we're going to use the prosecution is after his arrest, the DNA we take from the cheap swab.
And that leaves the situation where you can have a man who's very guilty, who might very well be a monster, but there's going to be enough doubts in the jury's mind to maybe let him go, especially in a death penalty case.
Well, let's talk about that because it's very interesting to me to think about if the FBI crossed a line, which is where the defense is driving, they're saying, why wouldn't you just turn over exactly what happened in your genetic genealogy search? There's no reason for us to not know exactly how you got the name Brian Kohlberger or more specifically his dad's name. And they won't.
They have been fighting this at every step of the way. It's very weird. If they didn't do anything wrong, why would just show it? Just turn it over. But they've been they asked Judge Judge. They've been asking. And now they ask the new judge like they've been trying at every turn to try to get this info over the FBI. Well, now the prosecution's objections because the argument will be.
We used to have this in law school. If you obtain evidence through an illegal search, you can't use it as the prosecutor. It's barred. You can't violate the Constitution and just go into somebody's house and search for the murder weapon without having a search warrant. That's because people have constitutional rights to privacy, etc. Your Fourth Amendment rights.
But there's an exception to this rule, which is if you can prove, it's called inevitable discovery, that we inevitably would have discovered this person anyway, then you can get past having your case thrown out and the evidence you're trying to get in, you can potentially get it in as well.
And this is why, for example, Matt Murphy, who's a 27-year prosecutor in the state of California, we've had him on the show a bunch of times, I asked him about this when you broke the news, Howard, about this is where the defense is going. This is why Matt Murphy does not think this will be an issue for team prosecution. Even if the FBI crossed lines, I'm going to run the soundbite standby.
Here it is. So you're saying even if they detected Brian Kohlberger's dad by doing something untoward, by maybe accessing some database they shouldn't have, the feds and so on, that you still like the prosecution's chances because they were driving at Brian Kohlberger through more than just the DNA on the knife sheath. And he would have been inevitably discovered.
Yes, and the remedy generally for DNA problems like this is you just retest the suspect. He can't change his DNA. His DNA doesn't change. There's a whole rash of these things, and they've been challenged, and they have repeatedly been shut down by the courts of appeal. And so the Koberger defense team, they're doing what they have to do. I have no criticism for them.
That's their job is to ensure that their client gets fair trial and to present whatever issues they can. But they're pretty dramatic about a lot of things they're doing. And I can tell you right now, that sounds good. It sounds good, especially to a lay audience, that the DNA on that knife sheath is going to be admitted against Brian Kloberger in that trial.
They're not going to be able to successfully suppress it, and it will be affirmed on appeal.
So, Howard, are you feeling are you hearing more confidence that this is a problem from the defense team?
I think, you know, first, you know, Matt Murphy knows a lot more about the law than I do or ever will. He's also very articulate and he's been a defense attorney and a prosecutor, I think, prosecutor and prosecutor. What the defense is going to do is raise a whole lot of doubts.
If you look at every individual item, it's how much dirt they can kick up that confused the jury, get dirt in their eyes, so to speak. You'll have the cell phone data. The cell phone data puts Koberger within a 13 mile radius at different times. That's not being at the same place as a crime. You have the surveillance videos of the white car, and Koberger has a white Hyundai car.
But during the course of the FBI's looking for the car, they made three different years for the car. They weren't sure. And in every photograph, there's not one that shows the man behind the wheel or the license plate. So what they have to do is raise doubts. Can they raise enough doubts? And that's what the trial will see. There's also another issue in the trial.
There's going to be new witnesses. One of the key things about the pretrial discovery I've been following is both the prosecution and the defense have raised the issue of a confidential source that needs to be protected. They both agree on this. They said that,
this has to be covered up if i can read this is what the defense said of why they want their documents for discovery under seal the document contains facts or statements that might endanger endanger the life or safety of individuals and then the prosecution came back and and agreed by saying that the release of discovery evidence could quote disclose the identity of a confidential source
a confidential source. So there might be some surprises in this trial. So you add to the confusion with the DNA evidence, you add confidential sources coming out of the woodwork at the last minute. This is going to be an interesting trial.
Oh, very. Well, I'm trying to think what role a confidential source could have in this case. How could one be even tangentially connected to this case? And all I could think is that there is a potential defense line of argument that this house was allegedly somehow connected to drugs or drug dealers. And maybe there's a witness who's going to say that.
yes i mean i i think that's an area that they're pursuing i know the defense has spent a lot of try time trying to build up the drug case what i've also heard though in the autopsies they found no evidence of any drugs in the system of any of the four young kids uh that were killed that were murdered uh but Is there a drug angle there?
Is one of the surviving people who are in the house, the two young women, is she going to be this confidential source? This remains to be seen. The father of Kelly Goncalves has been searching for this confidential source.
And at one point, his lawyer, according to what he's told people, received a letter from the FBI, from the FBI telling him not to intervene, to look for this confidential source, or it could disrupt the case.
hmm but we don't know who it is or what what business they're in uh we don't know uh maybe we could just speculate but you know the defense is in the business of uh raising doubts i mean yeah will it be effective well i think for whatever it's worth i think the whole line we were discussing about the genetic genealogy
I don't think that will make it in front of a jury. I think that's the kind of thing you make in a written motion to the judge to exclude the DNA as a matter of law from coming in. And I think the judge is going to overrule that he's going to reject that motion for the reasons Matt Murphy said. And then if they say, well, we want to at least argue it to the jury.
I'm not sure it's relevant because they did an actual cheek swab of him. I mean, maybe you could argue it's relevant if you want to show this is a bumbling FBI that has a pattern of crossing lines. I don't I haven't heard anything else that would support that. So I don't think a judge would allow that.
But right now, I think it's just it's interesting as a matter of law for a motion, not something you could get in front of a jury.
I mean, at this point, the defense has to use every I would say trick that they can, every bit of law that they can. I mean, look at their client's alibi. It's been nearly two years and what they've come up with after they've been pressed numerous times by the court is that he was out at 4 a.m. looking at the stars in a wilderness park where there are no witnesses.
It was below zero that night at the wilderness park and it was a cloudy sky, but the suspect was out there nevertheless.
Do we know anything I said before that we think that the knife sheath is the only DNA? But do we know that? I mean, they did a lot of searching of his apartment, of his car, of the bodies.
All that's been released to the public is the knife sheath DNA, the button on the knife sheath, actually. And that is, they've said, compares...
within reason of doubt to the cheek swab they took after the arrest the the prosecution if they have their way won't even mention the dna that originally got them there with that was taken from the family's home that was tied to the father they want to keep that out of the case completely and the defense will be moving heaven and earth to try to bring that in
Right, just to muck it up a little bit for the jury so it's not so clear-cut. Found a knife sheath. The DNA matches this guy right now because we did a cheek swab and it was a perfect match. They'd like to skip whatever happened in the interim.
And the prosecution is smart enough to realize... That the goal of the defense is to try to, as you say, muck things up. So if they didn't have anything to hide, why wouldn't they just put it into evidence? They said, OK, this is how we got it. This is nothing to be ashamed of using investigative forensic genealogy to get in there. But they seem to be holding something back.
And that's raising more questions and giving the defense something to work with.
Add that to the confidential witnesses. It's right in which we don't know. But this whole thing that we're discussing about the genetic genealogy took a turn for the better for the defense with this change of venue. How so?
Well, because I think this judge is going to be more sympathetic to the defense. He will demand, I think, to the prosecution. Yes, Hitler. I think he's going to be a bit tougher.
it's interesting on the first day when he convened the court in boise first thing he said was i'd like to say i'm happy to be here but i don't want to be begin with a lie he came right out that's what he's he told the courtroom he's going to be you know yes uh he doesn't want to be this the judge before him It seems clear now. Couldn't wait to get off the case.
As soon as he had the first opportunity to leave the case because of the change of venue, he could have stayed on the case. He was glad, glad to go to. I mean, this is going to judge.
Judge wanted. I mean, we had Judge Judge. We have Ann Taylor, defense lawyer. And now we have Judge Hippler again. It just, it reminds me of my friend. Her last name was Laden. She had a baby boy. She named him Quinn, Quinn Laden. That's no, just don't, you don't want to come anywhere near it. Stay away. Change it to hip nerve. That's my advice to this judge. Okay.
So anyway, so now we're going to go ahead and Boise, uh, supposedly on August 11th and there just was a motion, uh, That and I think it's granted that Brian Kohlberger in all the pretrial appearances and at the trial will be allowed to appear in a suit. They're not going to make him wear his prison clothes. And we recently got another look at him because he had to have another mugshot taken.
What did what did the new mugshot show us?
The new mugshot showed us a very stylish, well put together Brian Kohlberger suit. who seems to become almost a new handsome young man in prison.
He's got like new facial hair going.
Yeah, he has a three-day growth. He's looking good. And you can sort of see his whole demeanor during the different hearings. And there have been so many hearings, and they've all been on Zoom. I haven't been in the courtroom. But he seems to be staring straight ahead all the time. Even when Ann Taylor comes over and puts this maternal arm around his shoulder, he doesn't budge.
completely out of it, just staring straight ahead.
It's just like Menendez, really. We've been covering that case, too, with Leslie Abramson and Eric Menendez. She would do that with the arm around him. Poor Eric is this poor kid who was abused, trying to telegraph to the jury, this guy deserves your sympathy, not your condemnation. I'm not sure that's going to fly here. He does have a family, though.
Have they been participating in any of these hearings?
They have been zooming into the hearings. They talk with the lawyers in Pennsylvania. Will they come out to the actual trial? I imagine so. I think the families of the victims, two of them so far, have gone on trial. on the internet to do funding campaigns. The Goncalves family said they needed to raise $50,000 to go to the trial so that all 10 family members could attend.
They raised the $50,000 so quickly, but now they've raised their demand to 75,000. They'd like people to contribute so they can raise 75,000. They wanna be there. They also have been vigorously pushing for the death penalty in this case. That's going to be the next, I think, big debate in this case, in these pretrial months, whether or not the death penalty will take place.
And the use of the death penalty in Idaho is pretty problematic because of recent events. Last February, Idaho had their first
execution was taking place in nine years what happened at this execution they put the guy his name was thomas creech convicted of murder into the execution chamber and they're trying to give him the chemicals that will end his life for over an hour they try eight different veins to get get into him eight different ways to get the needle into him and nothing works
And now they had to postpone the execution. I can assure you that the defense will be going through all the details of this botched execution and saying that this is cruel and inhuman punishment and Idaho just doesn't have the sophistication to make an execution. They just can't do it. And to see if that will affect the judge.
Can't you be executed by firing squad in Idaho?
For this case last May, they passed a law that went into effect last June that will allow a firing squad. $750,000 was put aside by the state to turn the execution chamber into a place where they could also have a firing squad. This would only happen if they couldn't find the chemicals necessary for a chemical operation. execution. Oddly enough, you know, people can get fentanyl on the streets.
The state of Idaho has had trouble at times getting the correct chemicals for an execution. The $750,000 that was put aside to make this a room suitable for a firing squad has never been used. They have not done any sort of renovations at the state penitentiary to this date.
It just occurred to me something, Howard.
there any chance the confidential informant is his criminology professor who was so respected back in pennsylvania uh dr ramsland uh yeah she's an interesting woman i mean she writes brilliantly perceptively about serial killers she's a forensic psychologist she teaches at de salle university that was you know he was her star student uh She is in communication with the family.
I know that I've been told that by people who know. She got in in the early days right after his arrest. She contacted the family. She said, is there any way I can help? And they were so glad to have someone who wanted to be supportive. She said, according to what I've heard, I don't know if he's innocent or guilty, but if I can help you, guide you through this complicated process, I'd be glad to.
And she has conveyed through the family information to him. I've been told that. Could she be the confidential witness? That would be really interesting. I think at this point, she's probably working on her own book.
Yeah, well, I just feel like it's probably not her. But the reason I thought of it is, of course, she has access to a bunch of people getting advanced degrees and degrees in criminology. And as we've seen there, this isn't the first time this has happened there. There can be a fine line between criminologist and criminal.
And it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to think maybe someone like the feds or law enforcement would go to somebody like that pre Brian Kohlberger and say, let us know if anybody comes across your radar who you've got concerns about. And it could just be something where now they're protecting her. This is total speculation by me is probably more than likely.
Well, I'm sure they've reached out to her because the big question in this entire case was, Why were four people killed? At this point, neither the prosecution or the defense has put out a motive that makes sense in any way. What they have said is, for the record, that Brian Kohlberger had no interaction ever, ever with any of the victims. He did not speak with them. They have no record of it.
He did not follow them on social media. So why? I try to address that in my book. I come up with a theory of why he did it. But again, it's just a theory. I think in the courtroom, they're going to need some answers if they want to get a conviction.
I don't, I mean, I guess so. It's just very hard to respond to irrational behavior with a rational explanation. I know juries would want it, but it's like, look at what Jeffrey Dahmer did. Like it makes no sense to any sane human being. This guy, if he did this crime is a sick puppy. And so it's like, are we ever going to explain this? But yeah, I mean, you've come as close as anybody.
I mean, that's why we love reading your work, both your book and your articles for airmail. Thank you. Just spin a theory that really draws you in. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, that just he was on the outside looking in at these amazingly beautiful women living this life he would never live. And he was a tortured soul. This we know about the guy, whether he committed the murder or not.
He was a tortured soul.
Very much so. I think the key point, the theory that I come up with, and again, it's only a theory, is that he wasn't after, he didn't go that night to kill all four people. He just went to, for some reason, He wanted to kill Maddie Mogan. He felt he could not live in a world where she lived, her beauty, her exuberance. That was just a constant rebuke to him and the life he was leading.
So he goes into the house. He goes up the stairs to her bedroom. Then he finds Kaylee is there, too. And she becomes collateral damage. And then downstairs, there's Ethan. and Xana, they too were killed just because they were there. And the woman who survives, Dylan, who sees him, if she had cried out, if she had said anything, he probably didn't even notice her.
He was so locked in his own mania, again, this is my theory, that he just went out through this kitchen door. If she had spoken a word, she too would have been killed. Her silence, her retreating back to her bedroom saved her life. But the prosecution is going to have to build out a theory that's going to be not as circumstantial as I can in print or on the air.
They're going to have to have something. There's a lot of elements. We keep on saying, well, they can get over this hurdle. The prosecution can get over this hurdle. But you raise enough hurdles, and it's going to be very hard for a jury, especially in a case where a man might have to face a firing squad.
If he hadn't left behind that knife sheath, this would be a very different case. It would be so hard because we've never found a murder weapon. All they would have would have been the car evidence. And as you point out, if it's really only going to show that his car came within 13 miles of the murder home, that's not going to get it done. It's that knife sheath.
and the reports that he bought this K-bar knife, a K-bar knife, online on Amazon, what, two months before. Those are the two best pieces of evidence.
Right. And that's maybe very thin gruel to send a man to a firing squad. It's all the pieces come together, make a more coherent whole than each of the individual ones. But really, it's going to be a real burden on the jury, I think. I think it's going to be a fascinating trial.
I missed the other great piece of evidence against him. And that is the fact that he was stuffing his trash into little baggies to dispose of at the neighbor's house the night the FBI and the local law enforcement came into his house in the Poconos to arrest him. Yeah.
yes and his sister began to suspect him uh again there's a weakness of his alibi all put together uh is very incriminating but he's able to there's no blood ever found at least as we know it on his car in his apartment there's no incriminating information on his computer that we know about uh
So because the prosecution is going to say he ordered the knife, the K-bar knife in the sheath two months earlier on Amazon, whatever the date was, it wasn't that long in advance. He ordered a workman's suit, which is also in the news. He got like a full body worker suit and neither the murder weapon nor that suit have ever been found, not in Brian's apartment, not at the scene, nowhere.
Um, but he took a circuitous route from the murder scene back to the university of Idaho is as long, you know, tree covered highway easily could have pulled over and disposed of this stuff someplace in the woods where we could never find. And it, by the way, if, where is the worker suit? If he didn't do any nefarious, anything nefarious in it, why didn't we find it when he searched his apartment?
Where's the knife? Why wouldn't, why didn't we find that when we searched his apartment? Um, and that's the reason that it wasn't all over him.
Right. There's no blood in his car. There were no scratches on him. You can make a very convincing case and the defense will make it in great detail to the jury that they have the wrong man. I think I think they have the right person. But why? Ultimately, I think the defense is going to say, why would my why would he have done this? Why would he have done this?
And I think the prosecution is going to say his DNA was found at the murder scene on the knife sheath, not on a clock radio, not on a shoe, on the button of the knife sheath. And then the defense is going to say, touch DNA. Whereas you point out in your airmail articles that the amount of touch DNA they got is the tiniest, tiniest molecule, like not even a fleck of dust.
And by the way, anyone could have touched that knife sheath in the store from which it came. Exactly. Anybody.
I mean, they'll just raise doubts, raise doubts. And... will it be convincing and again especially when there has a firing squad you're going to there are enough doubts that you don't want to send a man to the firing squad to face a firing squad
Well, and then you've got him. That's why I think it's interesting that he's, I don't know, working on his look. I imagine Ann Taylor is going to have him shave that facial hair growing all over his neck in addition to his face prior to trial and make him clean shaven again. But he'll be sitting there presumably clean shaven.
I mean, it's hard to say he's an attractive man given what we believe he did. But, you know, objectively speaking, he's not a terrible looking man. And he'll have his nice suit on. I'm sure he'll be... you know, with the arm around him from Ann Taylor and his family right behind him, which they seem like nice people trying to project. I'm an all American boy. I was getting my Ph.D.
I I was preparing for a life of fighting crime, not committing crime, not murdering four people within what, nine to 12 minutes, whatever it was for no reason.
And until this event, until his arrest, he was in many ways a success story. Here's a guy who overcomes all sorts of things. He's a heroin addict, and yet he beats it. He's 125 pounds overweight. He loses the weight. He turns his body into a fortress. He's going to a... a poor junior college.
He gets out of the junior college and goes to a good college, DeSalle, and then gets into a great program in criminology at Washington State University. He does all this. He has one success, one success after another. He's trying to reinvent himself. And yet I would suggest that ultimately there's something in him that he begins to realize that he just can't fit into this world of success
this world of normal people, this world of conversations. I go back to a story I write about in my book where he first gets out to Moscow, Idaho, and he goes to a pool party and he sees some pretty young women and he gets their phone numbers and yet he just leaves the party. He never contacts them, but the women receive hang up calls. He just felt himself as an outsider.
Well, and also you're reporting about, because the jury will likely hear this. This will come in. Not all of what we're discussing is going to come into evidence, but the jury will more than likely hear the story about how things were on a downward spiral at the University of Washington for him. He wasn't just this brilliant PhD student, TA for the criminology department.
That was spiraling down the drain
at the same time we he was about to allegedly murder these four people yes but what he's going to say or the defense will say is just what he told his father on this trip that they take across america he begins to tell his father about some of the problems he's having at the university and that they're out to get him but he says i will come back there there'll be a hearing and i'll be able to make my case and i'll be reinstated and i'll be able to keep on teaching
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I don't think Brian Kohlberger is going to take the stand. And so his side of that story is going to be limited to whatever he wrote in emails in defense of himself to his professors. But I mean, you lay it out how these professors had had enough of Brian Kohlberger and they had actually terminated him from the PhD slash TA program right before the murders.
Yes. He gets the letter saying that he's been terminated. It's sent to his apartment in Washington State University. At this point, he's already on the road with his father. So he never actually gets the actual physical letter, but maybe he got an email because he does discuss it with his father on this road trip across America, and he's confident he can beat it.
But before the murders, Howard, he was... So maybe he didn't get the termination prior to the murders, but he knew at the time of the murders...
he his neck was on the chopping block at the university for his bad behavior he was called into three separate meetings with deans and his advisors and at one point they tell him okay you're doing better and then a week later he gets into a fight with his professor he Had to be the smartest person in the room. He had to have the last word.
And the professor was a former lawyer, a criminal lawyer in Washington State. And he just felt there was, I think,
haven't talked to him he he wouldn't talk to me he felt there was something off about the coberger's character and personality and this was reinforced by women in the class they said he treated them in a misogynistic way and one of them complained that he followed her to his car and that was the straw that broke the camel's back with the administration of washington state university
If I were the prosecutor, I'd stand up there, and I mean, I don't know how it works in Idaho, but in New York, the prosecutor gets two bites of the apple. You do the first closing, then the defense stands up and does their closing, and then you get a rebuttal at the end where you get the last word because you have the burden of proof. And I would say it's true.
Brian Kohlberger did overcome obesity and he did overcome his heroin addiction. You know what he did not overcome? The severe night terrors and torture, self-torture that's been going through his brain since the time he was 16, where he said he feels like a piece of dead meat, where he said, when I hug my father, I feel nothing.
This is a sociopath who is more than capable of these crimes, whose antisocial behaviors got to the point where they could no longer be ignored or not noticed by the students that were in the class for which he was a TA, by those above him who had been rooting for him, with whom he knew he had to curry good favor but couldn't maintain the ruse any longer.
And ultimately, this came to a boil inside of him because of the vibrance of these girls, the beauty of these girls, the vitality of this foursome living a life he could never live. Who knows whether he met one of them in the vegan restaurant? Who knows whether he met them online or just stalked the Instagram page? We'll find out whether he did for sure in court.
um but he was working out a lifetime of angst anguish and self-torture as he took that k-bar knife and plunged it into maddie mogan and her friends that night you make a very convincing case also i was just thinking as you were talking about who the confidential witness could be it could be one of his fellow students in his class uh one of the women who he might have walked to the car and felt
uncomfortable around him. Things might've happened in Washington state where there'd been rumors, but nothing is as that I felt comfortable about printing. Maybe these people will testify to that.
Was that the one he who's in whose apartment he installed a security system. And then she believed he did that just so he could look at her.
That's one theory, again, that hasn't been substantiated. That appeared on Dateline. The Dateline reporters are damn good, but I haven't been able to substantiate that. So maybe they have something I didn't get. It wouldn't be the first time. But I think something like that could come out at the trial, and those could be the witnesses who are willing to talk.
Well, look, I, for one, I'm just glad it's finally, we think, coming to trial. It's been too long. And I'm sure the families are just absolutely frustrated that, you know, with every passing day, witnesses' memories fade. Even the jurors' memories of the awfulness of this fade, though, that will be brought full front and center to them through pictures. But I'm sure they want justice.
You know, they want an end to this or at least an end to this phase.
Yes. I mean, and they also want some of the families make it clear they want vengeance and who can blame them in many ways. You know, one father said, I send my daughter off to college and she comes home to me in a box. How can you deny him his venting for vengeance? I certainly can't.
Now, that's another piece of this process. It's already inconvenient. They got to travel now to Boise, allegedly to protect his rights because the defense did some survey of the locals in Moscow, Idaho, that allegedly suggested they all knew about the case and they allegedly had biases already. I mean, all of that could have been cleansed on jury selection and with the jury instruction.
I don't think you're going to find people in Boise who've never heard of the case either.
93%.
So 4% difference. What they'll say is that there'll be a larger jury pool. In Moscow, you have a jury pool of approximately 20,000 people. In Boise, it's about 300,000. So you have more to check to find someone. I wouldn't have moved the trial, but I see how the judge had to do it.
You want to do everything that will make this trial stand up because you know it's going to be appealed if he's convicted. So you want to give them as less reasons as possible for having a successful appeal. And that's why you want all the breaking information to be presented too.
Yeah, 100 percent. If there's any good news in this for people like you and me, it's that Judge Judge and kicking it up to Boise said at least they're going to have a bigger courtroom which can handle the amount of interest that there will be in this case, which, you know, I mean, honestly, as members of the media, that's that is good. There will be cameras inside of this courtroom.
It'll be controlled. It'll be one at the back of the courtroom, we're told. But in any event, having access to the actual trial on camera is such a gift. It's definitely going to drive interest in this case. And, you know, in August post the presidential election, I think there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on this.
Right. And jury selection will start July 30th. And they expect it. This is the other thing. When he talks about the trial date, he's giving just eight days for jury selection. I don't know if you can select a jury that quickly, but we'll see.
Yeah. Well, I like the deadlines. I like the idea of the deadlines. And just to say, I've never heard a judge say it starts on August 11th and it ends on November 7th. Well, I'm not sure that's how it works. Including the penalty phase.
Yes. Yes.
We'll see.
Yes.
Well, Howard Bloom, what a pleasure as always. Thank you so much for your great reporting on this case. To be continued. I look forward to it. Thanks for joining us today. Coming up next week, we dive into the Alec Murdoch case and Scott Peterson. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.