0:03

Newly uncovered posts made by

0:05

an online forum may give us insight

0:08

into Brian Coberger's character.

0:10

Between November of two thousand and nine and February

0:13

twenty twelve, while Coburger was

0:15

a teenager, he allegedly made one hundred

0:17

and eighteen posts, and in one of

0:19

them, he said he felt no emotion and

0:21

said quote, I can say and do

0:23

whatever I want with little remorse.

0:32

This is the Idaho Massacre.

0:35

A production of KAT Studios and

0:37

iHeartRadio episode

0:40

seven in the Dark.

0:44

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a television producer

0:46

at KAT Studios with Stephanie Leidecker,

0:49

Jeff Shane, and Connor Powell. In

0:54

July of twenty eleven, a user going

0:57

by the name Xar posted

0:59

on an online chat forum that quote

1:02

the ringing in his ears and the fuzz

1:04

in his vision made him feel that all

1:06

the demons in his head were mocking him.

1:08

The chilling statement is just one of more than

1:11

one hundred messages believed to be authored

1:13

by a then teenage Brian Cooeberger

1:15

on the website tapatok. In

1:19

post after post, Coburger claimed

1:21

to be suffering from a little known neurological

1:23

syndrome called visual snow. The

1:28

rare condition has a range of disorienting

1:31

symptoms, but the most common

1:33

is constantly seeing snow like

1:35

flex or black and white scattered dots,

1:38

like the static on an old analog television.

1:42

I see a large intensity

1:44

of black, yellow, white fuzz. It makes

1:46

my mind fizzle and I could barely

1:49

keep in the bounds of reality.

1:51

Coburger wrote that his condition led

1:53

to anxiety, depression, and

1:55

quote crazy thoughts. These

1:58

posts paint a picture of a deeply who

2:01

would later turn to heroine and develop

2:03

an obsessive interest in violent criminals.

2:07

Coburger's dark mind and law enforcement

2:09

background has led many to draw similarities

2:11

to other serial killers like Dennis

2:13

Radar. Radar dubbed

2:16

himself quote the BTK for

2:18

his fondness to bind, torture,

2:20

and kill his victims, and

2:23

Joseph James DiAngelo, otherwise

2:25

known as the Golden State Killer. Both

2:29

had a history of disturbing thoughts and an

2:31

intense interest in law enforcement. So

2:34

how does Brian Coburger fit into the larger

2:36

history of killers. What in his

2:38

background could have potentially led

2:41

Coburger down a path to murder? How

2:43

did he go from someone who caught criminals

2:46

to potentially becoming a killer himself,

2:49

or could he have potentially evolved

2:52

into a killer as he descended deeper

2:54

into the dark world of criminology.

2:58

When investigators released It's the Probable

3:00

Cause Affidavid in the University of

3:02

Idaho murders, the nineteen page

3:05

document laid out much of the evidence linking

3:07

Coburger to the crime. According

3:10

to police, the twenty eight year old criminology

3:13

student's DNA was on a knife sheath

3:15

found at the murder scene, and

3:17

a white Atlanta like the one Coburger

3:20

drove, was seen driving past the home

3:22

on King Road multiple times. Coburger's

3:26

phone also repeatedly pinged

3:28

on towers near the house in the weeks before

3:30

the Grizzly murders. But one

3:32

key piece of the puzzle was conspicuously

3:34

missing from the Probable Cause Affidavid.

3:38

Motive There's

3:42

Jeff and Stephanie.

3:45

Motive is an essential part of the criminal justice

3:47

process. Its official definition is the

3:50

moving course, the impulse, or the desire that

3:52

induces criminal action on the part of the accused.

3:55

Basically, why did this crime or murder

3:57

happen? As rational humans, we crave a

3:59

justification for otherwise senseless and horrible

4:01

acts.

4:02

I mean, it's a very important piece of the court

4:04

process, and it's not a requirement

4:07

to get a conviction, but look, jurors

4:09

really want to make sense of a case.

4:11

This case is so fascinating, not only because

4:13

of the sheer atrocity of the murders, but also

4:15

because of the accused trajectory

4:18

and how complex it is. Up until December

4:20

twenty twenty two, Brian Coberger seemingly

4:22

had wanted to be a hero. He told his friends

4:24

he had helped to study high profile criminals and

4:26

aspired to help catch quote unquote bad

4:29

guys.

4:29

This is the part that doesn't totally make sense about

4:32

this case. How and why does Coburger

4:34

go from that to being

4:36

accused of brutally murdering four people.

4:39

I speak for the general public when I say we're all

4:41

immensely curious.

4:43

I guess, depending upon what is revealed

4:45

at trial, we may get a motive

4:47

at some point, but as of right

4:49

now, there really doesn't appear to be one.

4:51

So it raises the question was Brian

4:53

Coberger born a killer? Or did something

4:55

happen in his life to turn him into a monster.

4:58

And one thing where it's noting listen, don't officially

5:00

know about Coburger's mental state,

5:03

but what we do know is what he said about

5:05

his symptoms around his condition

5:07

called visual snow, and that's

5:09

probably a pretty decent place to start.

5:13

Understanding visual snow is

5:15

still not fully well understood. A

5:18

lot of how it works or

5:20

how it's affecting the brain is under

5:23

kind of hypothesis.

5:26

Coberger wrote on the TAPA Talk for Him

5:29

that his visual snow symptoms began in

5:31

September of two thousand and nine, when

5:33

he was just fourteen years old. He

5:35

admitted the condition changed him, saying

5:37

he became more anxious and developed

5:40

a sense of derealization and hopelessness.

5:44

I think for some people who have high anxiety

5:46

over it or want to get

5:48

rid of it, that's really the

5:51

frustrating part, because we don't

5:53

have a cure for it.

5:55

Joseph Allen is a doctor of optometry

5:57

who has studied visual snow tho

6:00

suffers from the rare condition. Here

6:02

he is speaking with Jeff.

6:05

You obviously never treated Brian Coburger

6:08

or know his state of mind. But for

6:10

someone who's maybe not in

6:12

the best state of mind, how do you think

6:14

throwing visual snow on top of that would affect someone.

6:17

So there is associations

6:20

with visual snow with depression

6:22

and anxiety. Those probably are the two

6:25

most consistent ones on top

6:27

of headaches. Like a lot of people who have visual snow

6:29

usually have a history of migraines. It's

6:32

like almost sixty percent of

6:34

people who have visual snow syndrome also have

6:37

a history of migraine headaches. You're somebody

6:39

with visual SNOW and

6:42

you're seeing visual

6:44

phenomenon like this that you can't explain

6:47

that doctors maybe are being

6:49

dismissive about, and you have other

6:51

forms of anxiety or depression.

6:54

I think it can really become more

6:56

isolating. We know isolation

6:58

Bru's mental illness. I think there is

7:01

maybe a higher risk factor for some of them.

7:05

In posts on the online visual Snow

7:07

forum, Coburger suggests he turned

7:09

to the internet in two thousand and nine in hopes

7:12

of finding help, but in the absence

7:14

of answers to his questions. Coburger

7:16

said he felt like the demons in his head were

7:18

mocking him. As

7:20

a result, he grew distant from the people

7:23

around him. In a July twenty

7:25

eleven post, Coburger wrote, quote,

7:28

I have had this horrible depersonalization

7:30

in my life for almost two years.

7:33

As I hug my family, I look into their

7:35

faces, I see nothing. It

7:38

is like I'm looking at a video game but

7:40

less. I am blank. I

7:43

have no opinion, I have no emotion,

7:46

I have nothing. This

7:49

type of disconnection is common for people

7:52

suffering from eye issues, particularly

7:54

visual snow Here Again,

7:56

Doctor Joseph Allen, speaking with.

7:58

Jeff I

8:01

have identified as having visual

8:03

snow I fit the diagnosis

8:05

requirements. It's something that I've struggled

8:08

with since I was a kid, Like I can think

8:10

of like maybe nine years old. Third

8:12

grade is when I first, I think, became just

8:14

more perceptually aware of

8:17

what was happening with my eyes. But like

8:19

most people who have visual snow they don't

8:21

either no one talks about it or we

8:24

just sort of, you know, you grow up with it all your life

8:26

and you just sort of assume that's how everybody sees.

8:28

So did you go into optometry because you

8:31

felt like you had eye issues?

8:32

I think there is definitely some poll there.

8:34

At a young age, around age seven age, I got

8:37

thick glasses, and ultimately

8:39

I think what drove me to be in the profession is because I

8:41

got contact lenses. Getting contact lenses

8:43

was a lot allowed me to play sports and that

8:45

helped me make friends and having

8:48

that boost of self confidence at age of thirteen.

8:50

It's interesting that you bring up how getting

8:53

your eyes kind of taken care of

8:55

really opened up a lot of doors for you socially

8:57

and kind of changed your life for the better. Because

9:00

Brian Coburger struggled socially

9:02

his whole life. He didn't connect with girls,

9:05

he didn't really have a lot of friends, and so

9:07

it makes it you wonder, is it maybe

9:09

because he couldn't see properly, Like he wasn't

9:11

connecting with the world the way he

9:14

felt, you know, he could have been.

9:15

I think eyesight is super important. Like

9:17

for my case, sports like kids

9:21

make much better social connections if they're

9:23

involved in activities with other kids. And

9:25

for me, it was hard to play football. You can't really play football

9:28

with pick glasses on. So for me,

9:30

getting into contact lenses really was that

9:32

key to opening up that whole

9:34

other stream of life for me.

9:38

But by his teenage years, Brian

9:40

Coberger wrote on Tapa Talk, he

9:43

wasn't making personal connections with family

9:45

or friends. Instead, his

9:47

mind was moving in a darker direction in

9:50

posts. As a then sixteen year old,

9:52

Coburger wrote that his visual snow condition

9:55

made him feel like a quote organic

9:57

sack of meat with no self worth.

10:01

He berated himself for his expanding array

10:03

of mental struggles that ranged from

10:05

depression to delusions of grandeur,

10:07

to anxiety to constant thoughts of

10:09

suicide. Coburger

10:12

even wrote lyrics to a rap song saying,

10:14

you are not my equal. You are evil,

10:17

but I am the devil. But now I am

10:19

going regal. Don't fuck with

10:21

us again. Joseph

10:23

Allen, there.

10:27

Is no evidence right now

10:29

that visual snow syndrome would cause

10:32

mental illness, but it is I

10:35

think in his case, if he has mental illness

10:37

and then a visual snow on top of it,

10:39

it's like augmenting it. It's giving him more,

10:42

maybe more reasons to

10:44

lose grip on his own sense of reality.

10:47

Perhaps there is some reported

10:49

on top of depression of anxiety, there is

10:51

something called depersonalization and

10:54

derealization which is associated

10:56

with it. Depersonalization kind

10:59

of refers to these feelings

11:01

that you've detached from your physical

11:04

body or even from kind of your

11:06

own mind, and so people

11:08

will feel that they are robotic

11:11

or being maybe controlled by somebody else.

11:14

And there's this concept of

11:16

derealization, which I like to

11:18

think of it as the Matrix syndrome. If you've ever seen

11:20

that movie The Matrix, where people

11:22

feel like the world around them isn't real,

11:25

they feel that it's artificial. And

11:27

you can imagine if you have visual

11:29

snow syndrome and you see this static all the time,

11:31

you could be like, well, maybe my

11:34

body is just like a video

11:36

game character, and somebody else outside

11:38

of this make believe world I live

11:40

in is actually controlling me. So

11:43

I think if you have already

11:45

existing mental illness, a poor grip

11:47

on reality, a poor social

11:50

structure, and then maybe having

11:52

these feelings of depersonalization

11:56

derealization, then it's

11:58

it's easier maybe to whose emotional

12:01

connection between other people and

12:03

even maybe what's right and wrong.

12:09

Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in

12:11

a moment. By

12:20

twenty eleven, Brian Kolberger was desperate

12:22

for a solution. The effects of visual

12:24

Snow were weighing on him. He

12:27

wrote on the online forum that he visited

12:29

a neurologist and took antimigraine

12:31

medicine. Neither worked. Coburger

12:35

later adopted a strict diet, removing

12:37

sugar, bread, wheat, soy,

12:39

and other carbohydrates from his meals.

12:42

High school friends described him during this time

12:44

as obsessive about his new health regime,

12:47

which did help him lose a significant amount

12:49

of weight, at least one hundred pounds,

12:52

if not more, and according

12:54

to his own words, Coburger began to improve.

12:57

Coburger wrote on the tap talk forum

12:59

in February Worry of twenty twelve that he had

13:01

accepted his visual snow and that the condition

13:04

no longer scared him. However, in

13:06

his final post, he also said quote,

13:09

I feel like coming to terms could be a bad

13:11

thing, though again Stephanie

13:14

and Jeff.

13:16

Between twenty twelve and twenty thirteen,

13:18

Coburger went through this huge

13:21

transformation after several

13:23

years of feeling very down and

13:25

depressed. According to reports, he

13:27

really started to turn things around and turned

13:30

a corner. He adopted a new diet,

13:32

he started to lose a ton of weight,

13:34

and he was apparently much more happy

13:36

about life and seemingly more optimistic.

13:39

But it's also around this time that he gets kicked

13:41

out of the law enforcement Educational

13:43

Vocation program and ends up having

13:45

to finish high school remotely in the spring of twenty

13:47

thirteen.

13:48

This is a pretty big deal, and according

13:50

to multiple friends, this turmoil

13:53

really spun him in a dangerous direction.

13:55

He started to use drugs. Apparently

13:57

he started with marijuana, but then

14:00

that really escalated to heroin, which

14:02

is a huge leap.

14:03

One of his friends, Rich Pasqual, who

14:06

worked with Coburger at the pizza shop, said that

14:08

by twenty thirteen, Coburger was a full on

14:10

heroin addict, but he was eventually able to

14:12

kick the habit, going to rehab and enrolling

14:14

at the Northampton Community College.

14:17

It does seem that Coburger has a bit of

14:19

a history of locking in and

14:21

almost obsessing about certain parts of

14:24

his life, whether it's the visual

14:26

snow or drugs, his

14:28

diet, and in some ways, even his own

14:30

criminal behavior.

14:32

This type of compulsive behavior is something

14:34

we see with other serial or prolific

14:36

killers.

14:41

After years of being socially detached,

14:44

addicted to drugs, and suicidal,

14:46

Coburger appears to have found a new

14:48

purpose after rehab, an intense

14:51

fascination with the criminal mind. This

14:53

fascination led Coburger to study at

14:55

nearby Dessalge University and

14:58

ultimately under the renowned on forensic psychologists,

15:01

doctor Catherine Ramsland.

15:05

Do you have to study the victim and you

15:07

have to know things about offenders?

15:09

So you have to study offenders and

15:11

you have to know the kinds of things they might

15:14

do.

15:15

Ramsland is one of, if not the leading

15:17

expert on serial killers and murderers.

15:20

She's written more than sixty books and hundreds

15:22

of articles on violent criminals. On

15:26

December twenty second, twenty twenty two,

15:28

producer Jeff Shane conducted an interview

15:30

with Ramsland for a different project. Just

15:33

eight days later, her former student

15:35

Brian Coberger would be arrested. In

15:38

hindsight, their conversation is

15:40

chilling.

15:41

What can you tell me about people who commit crimes?

15:44

So you're looking at the body and

15:46

the crime scene, maybe the whole geographic

15:50

analysis in terms of their

15:52

comfort zone and et cetera. But

15:54

you're also looking at what do we know

15:56

about offenders to apply

15:58

to this, and then you want to build

16:01

as detailed biography of

16:03

the person as you possibly can. It's

16:06

all going to be probability based,

16:08

more likely to have education than

16:11

not education, or more likely

16:13

to be compelled sexually

16:15

because of certain rituals, and

16:17

nothing missing. But if things

16:20

are always missing, they're all more likely to

16:22

be motivated by greed

16:25

or any eliminating witnesses not

16:27

really interested in the murder itself,

16:30

more interested in eliminating witnesses

16:33

while they get off with the goods. But

16:35

if the victim is mutilated

16:37

in some way, overkill

16:40

things like that, that's going to tell you a

16:42

different story about the offender. So

16:44

a lot of it's going to be based on what

16:46

you're finding at the scene. There's

16:49

a retrospective profile

16:51

and a prospective profile, and

16:54

too many people are doing the prospective profiling,

16:56

and that is more of a risk evaluation

17:00

based on a pattern of behaviors.

17:03

Retrospective profile is what do

17:05

we see right here at the crime scene

17:08

today that will tell us something

17:10

about this offender. And if we have

17:12

several scenes that we think

17:15

are related to the same

17:17

offender, what do those various

17:20

scenes tell us about this person.

17:25

Ramsland has refused to comment publicly

17:28

on her former graduate student, but

17:30

she is most famous for her extensive research

17:32

and books about the serial killer Dennis

17:34

Radar, most commonly known as

17:37

the BTK. Dessal's

17:41

University is known for its hands on criminology

17:43

program and as an undergraduate

17:45

criminology student. Coburger would

17:48

have studied Radar. As a graduate

17:50

student of Ramsland. It's likely Coburger

17:52

would have studied Radar in depth. He

17:55

may have even had access to Ramsland's

17:57

primary research information about

17:59

both real killers and Dennis

18:01

Radar.

18:05

Tell me about BTK and how modern

18:07

day criminals might have evolved since then.

18:09

These days, serial killers quite

18:11

often are a little more sophisticated. They're aware

18:14

of you know, the investigators

18:16

are looking at patterns. But even

18:20

back in you know, the

18:22

seventies, they sometimes

18:24

they would have a ritual, so there

18:26

would be similarities. But

18:29

then they'll pick up somebody a victim

18:31

of opportunity, weren't even looking, but

18:33

they had their murder kits, so why not

18:35

go for this? And then it's completely different.

18:37

I remember Dennis Raider, for example,

18:39

the BTK killer who so

18:42

nineteen seventies into the eighties, and this

18:44

final one of the ten he

18:46

killed was in nineteen ninety one, and

18:49

by nineteen ninety one he realized

18:51

how the FBI approached all this, and

18:54

so instead of killing people in

18:56

houses that he entered, he

18:59

took a couple victims and dumped them outside.

19:02

One victim he called it in

19:04

none of the others. Several of

19:06

them he wrote notes to the newspaper,

19:09

but not all of them, so that's

19:11

not a He's not a particularly

19:14

sophisticated person. But he did

19:17

change things up a little bit. He murdered

19:19

a family of four, then he murdered a single

19:21

woman. They didn't connect them

19:24

at all because even though

19:26

the bodies all were bound,

19:28

he'd used different knots on the single

19:31

woman than he had on the family. And

19:33

he didn't do that purposely. He

19:36

just liked knots and he was mixing

19:38

it up.

19:41

How much Coburger studied or understood

19:43

about serial killers like Radar isn't

19:45

clear, but there are unique and

19:47

disturbing similarities between Coburger

19:50

and Radar. Both

19:52

are accused of committing their murderers while pursuing

19:54

degrees in criminal justice. Radar

19:57

was earning an undergraduate degree from which

19:59

tosstatem as he embarked on his killing

20:01

spree, and as doctor Ramslan

20:04

mentioned in her interview, Radar mixed up

20:06

his killing profile to evade investigators.

20:09

When Coburger was arrested, he was wearing

20:11

rubber gloves and sorting his trash into

20:13

smaller plastic bags in an apparent

20:15

effort to prevent police from collecting evidence

20:17

against him. In an interview with TMZ,

20:20

Dennis Radar said he saw similarities

20:22

between Coburger and himself, the

20:25

convicted killer of tens, that he believed

20:27

Coburger, like himself, was motivated

20:29

to kill by the fantasy of homicide. Again,

20:32

Stephanie and Jeff.

20:35

This is really the scariest question about Coburger.

20:37

We know that he told people from a young age

20:39

that he wanted to catch violent criminals

20:41

and be a police officer. Later at WSU,

20:44

he said he wanted to help rural police departments

20:46

solve crimes. So was this all

20:48

talk just a front or a ruse

20:50

to get in with investigators? Did he want

20:52

to figure out how they worked so he could operate

20:55

around them. Given what we know about his teenageers,

20:57

his feelings of isolation, and the demons

20:59

in his had, is it possible that he had a

21:01

long standing desire to kill.

21:03

So with that in mind, are

21:05

you saying that possibly studying

21:07

criminology was part of the

21:10

plan to learn how to kill people without

21:12

getting caught exactly, or

21:14

I also wonder if he has this personality

21:17

type that's a bit obsessive. Was it

21:19

possible that he's studying

21:21

criminals at school because he's

21:23

been obsessed with crime and fantasizing

21:25

about being a.

21:26

Killer his whole life.

21:28

Or is it because he was studying

21:30

criminology and about killers that

21:33

he began to fantasize about it.

21:35

That could make sense, and he definitely could have used

21:37

what he learned from his criminology studies to help

21:39

him get away with murder, at least for a little while.

21:44

Let's stop here for another break.

21:54

Brian Colberger's classmates and professors

21:57

described him as intellectual, though at times

21:59

arrogant and a bit of a know at all. One

22:01

former professor from Dsal's University

22:04

went further and said Coburger was a

22:06

brilliant student. Michelle

22:09

Bulger, an associate professor of criminology,

22:11

wrote a letter of recommendation for Colberger's

22:14

PhD application, describing

22:16

him as perfectly professional in

22:18

all their interactions. She

22:23

also advised Coburger with his master's

22:25

thesis on script theory, which focused

22:28

on how and why criminals commit their

22:30

crimes. As part of Coberger's

22:32

deep dive into script theory, the idea

22:34

that people largely fall into patterns

22:37

or scripts, Bulger oversaw the creation

22:39

of Coburger's request for criminals

22:41

to fill out a survey on Reddit about their

22:43

thoughts and emotions while committing a crime.

22:49

Stephanie and Jeff.

22:51

This Reddit survey is just so interesting.

22:54

Yes, while his former professor says

22:56

that type of work is very common amongst

22:59

criminology students, and the specific

23:01

nature of the questions and what he would later be

23:03

accused of certainly raises some

23:05

serious questions.

23:07

We looked up the original survey. He

23:09

posted it on Wednesday, June first, twenty

23:11

twenty two, which was two hundred and twelve days

23:14

before Xana, Ethan, Madison

23:16

and Kayley were murdered. Here's what it said.

23:18

Hello, my name is Brian, and I am inviting

23:21

you to participate in a research project that

23:23

seeks to understand how emotions and

23:25

psychological traits influence decision

23:27

making when committing a crime. In particular,

23:30

this study seeks to understand the story behind

23:32

your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis

23:34

on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience.

23:37

The questions read, did you prepare

23:39

for the crime before leaving your home? Please detail

23:42

what you were thinking and feeling at this point after

23:44

committing the crime. What were you thinking and feeling.

23:46

How did you travel to and enter the location

23:49

that the crime occurred. After arriving,

23:51

what steps did you take prior to locating the victim

23:53

or target? Please detail your thoughts and feelings.

23:56

How did you leave the scene. Why did you choose

23:58

that victim or target over others before

24:00

making your move? How did you approach the victim

24:02

or target? Please detail what you were thinking and

24:04

feeling. How did you accomplish your goal? Please

24:07

explain what you were thinking and feeling before

24:09

leaving? Is there anything else you did?

24:11

Jeff, what you said about this type of survey

24:14

is pretty typical of graduate students,

24:17

but it did get us curious if

24:19

he had used any of this information in

24:21

his thesis, and it doesn't appear that

24:23

he did so.

24:24

Maybe he didn't get enough participants and scrapped

24:26

the idea, or he.

24:28

Took the survey collected the information,

24:31

it was a ruse that he was using it for his

24:33

thesis and instead used.

24:35

It to plot murder. If

24:37

Colberger was potentially using his academic

24:40

opportunities to learn how to kill,

24:42

one skill, he potentially appears to have employed

24:45

murdering Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna,

24:48

and Ethan is the ruse.

24:50

A ruse is something that the killer

24:52

presents to calm the

24:55

intended victim. While the killer

24:57

knows he's going to be murdering them, he

25:00

doesn't want them to know anything

25:02

violent is going to happen to them, so

25:05

he'll use a ruse to get

25:07

them, perhaps to go with them to a

25:09

more secluded place. But even

25:11

then, if he does something, he

25:13

may present another ruse even

25:16

as he's binding them, say

25:18

I'm not gonna argue, I just need

25:20

to do this. And it will vary

25:22

with some of these different killers. But even

25:25

when a person suspects something wrong,

25:27

if the killer is not in the position to do everything

25:29

they need to do, then they will try

25:31

to calm them once more, and it'll be done by

25:33

a ruse, which is usually what they

25:36

say to them in the kindness way possible,

25:38

and hopefully it'll be believed by the victim.

25:44

Kevin Sullivan is an investigative journalist

25:46

and author of several books about the serial

25:48

killer Ted Bundy. He sees

25:50

several similarities between Coberger and

25:52

Bundy, who confess to killing at least thirty

25:55

people in seven states. According

25:59

to the problem Will Cause Affidavid roommate

26:01

Dylan Mortenson heard crying coming

26:03

from Xana Kernodle's room, and then a

26:05

male voice saying, quote, it's

26:07

okay, I'm going to help you.

26:10

This effort by a killer to reassure

26:12

a victim is common in pre plan

26:14

murders.

26:16

BTK did this. He would

26:18

try to assure people that like nothing

26:20

was going to happen, or it was for

26:22

a different reason or whatever. A lot of

26:25

these people do this, but the key

26:27

is is to get them calm. I mean, the mob

26:29

does this. Sometimes the mob will go out

26:31

and say let's go get spent the whole night with somebody

26:34

or five of them and then they said let's go get

26:36

breakfast or whatever. End up go and

26:38

immediately killed this guy. And it

26:40

was planned from the start. But what was

26:42

the ruse in that case? Hey, these guys

26:44

like me, we're friends. They're thinking me at

26:46

the breakfast and the next thing you know, he's got

26:49

a wire around his neck or he's been shot

26:51

on the head.

26:54

Some killers use the ruse in a tense

26:56

moment to calm a panicking victim. Others,

26:59

like this serial killer Ted Bundy, would

27:01

create elaborate stories to trick on suspecting

27:04

targets.

27:08

He said that he knew that he was hunting

27:10

girls that were from normal, good

27:13

families, and that they would be more

27:15

likely to help somebody. If

27:18

they were either on crutches and fumbling

27:20

with books, or they needed directions

27:24

or something else was asked

27:26

of them, they would be completely

27:28

unsuspecting.

27:30

In nineteen seventy four, then eighteen

27:32

year old George Anne Hawkins was walking

27:34

near his sorority house at the University

27:36

of Washington. The disappearance of

27:38

young women was from Page News at the time.

27:41

Georgie Anne was well aware of the threat and

27:43

had been regularly walking with friends,

27:45

but after leaving her boyfriend's home, she sat out

27:48

alone on a well lit road to walk the short

27:50

distance to her house.

27:52

As she was walking home, she ran into

27:54

a man who had a lay cast on

27:56

with his plants are split and was all, I leave

27:59

his right leg. He was fumbling with a

28:01

briefcase and on crutches. That person

28:03

was Ted Bundy. He asked her,

28:06

would you mind helping me take

28:08

my briefcase to my car. Of

28:10

course, she doesn't think. This

28:12

guy with a cast on his leg bruise.

28:15

This guy with crutches ruse.

28:18

This guy who's so nice and articulate

28:21

ruse is going to do anything

28:23

to her. In her mind

28:25

she thought, yeah, I can help him. And

28:28

what does she do? She takes

28:30

the briefcase. They walked down the alley

28:32

and he had put his crowbar

28:35

right behind his VW his

28:37

page VW, And as

28:40

she was putting the crutches

28:42

in the car, he reaches back, grabs

28:45

the crowbar, and he hit her in the head

28:47

to hit her so hard that both her earrings

28:49

flew off and she came out of one

28:51

of her shoes. He didn't grab those. Then

28:53

he put her in the car, and

28:56

then he took her to a remote

28:58

area about twenty minutes from there where

29:00

she had awakened on the way, and

29:03

eat her again. And then he killed

29:05

her soon after that. But the ruse

29:08

played a part in obtaining her.

29:10

If he would have had a bad look, if he

29:12

would have looked like a criminal, if

29:14

he didn't have the ruse of a cast or grutches,

29:17

there would be no reason.

29:18

To help him.

29:19

So he tells Bill Egmar, he said

29:21

he did all these things so that these

29:23

good, kind women who were raised

29:26

right would help me. So here you got a

29:28

woman Georgie and Hawkins who

29:30

knows about the women disappearing who

29:33

already assumes their homicide, and

29:35

yet she meets somebody that doesn't

29:37

fit what her criteria

29:40

is for an evil individual.

29:45

Colberger appears to intentionally have tried

29:48

to use the ruis to calm at least one of the

29:50

roommates, and if the twenty eight year

29:52

old had been fantasizing or even planning

29:54

to kill for a long time, Coburger

29:56

could have been using the cover of a criminology

29:59

student to prepare for those future murders.

30:01

This type of long term fantasizing turned

30:04

organized planning is also common

30:06

with killers like BTK and Ted

30:08

Bundy again Jeff

30:10

and Kevin Sullivan.

30:12

He was kind of staking out the house. He would

30:14

drive by it, he went there lot. You know, in the months

30:17

leading up to the murders, do you think that speaks

30:19

to escalation? Like maybe at first he would

30:21

just do a drive by or follow them or maybe peer

30:23

in their window, and it just becomes

30:25

you need a little bit, a biggerfect, a biggerffects. So maybe

30:27

one day he goes inside and then just becomes

30:29

more and more until it ultimately leads to murder.

30:32

I guarantee you that people

30:34

that do this prior to the murder they

30:36

are thinking about it a lot, They are

30:38

living mentally in that realm, and

30:41

usually it has a sexual component

30:44

to it, which will become masturbatory

30:47

even prior to the event, just as

30:49

some of these people visit these locations

30:52

afterwards and have to

30:54

sexualize the experience to masturbation.

30:57

So I would assume that he

30:59

was trying to not unleash

31:02

and do as much. And remember, there's

31:04

always gotta be a first time. Once

31:06

you kill your first person, you

31:08

can never go back and unkill that

31:10

person. You were forever changed.

31:13

So if that attack and murder

31:16

on those four kids

31:18

college kids was the first one,

31:21

and if that was Coburger, then

31:23

he was doing everything

31:25

he could to maintain it

31:27

and organize himself as an

31:29

organized person so as not to

31:31

make any problems for himself until that

31:33

time happened. So when he got

31:35

in there, I mean, whoever got

31:37

in there, If it was Coburger, he either

31:40

unleashed it himself or he just

31:42

couldn't take it anymore. And

31:45

that's what Bundy did. Bundy lived

31:47

in this dark realm of sexual

31:50

violent fantasy for so many

31:53

years. It was going to reach a

31:55

point in his faculties where

31:57

it was gonna tip over and he was

31:59

gonna crossover from fantasy

32:02

to reality. That's where it's

32:04

going, and that's where these people

32:06

ultimately wants it to go. And

32:08

when that first time happens, even

32:11

if the person escapes, since if it's Coburger,

32:14

he might have been thinking right after

32:16

the murders, in the days after, what

32:18

did.

32:18

I leave there?

32:19

And way of forensics something Bundy didn't

32:21

have to worry about what happened there, even

32:23

if I had gloves, would anybody have seen

32:25

me go in? It was probably pretty

32:28

frightened as to what may

32:30

have happened that could ultimately cause

32:33

his apprehension. So in that

32:35

case, would he be sitting

32:37

back and planning his next murder. No,

32:41

he'd be trying to get to the place

32:43

where if I can just wait this out

32:45

and if I'm not arrested, then

32:47

maybe I can I can go again. Do

32:50

I think if he's the one that he

32:52

would have ultimately killed again? Highly

32:55

likely? It probably almost assured

32:57

that he would, especially if

33:00

he really enjoyed

33:03

doing it. And and if this

33:05

person enjoyed killing with that

33:07

knife while they were killing them, you've

33:09

got somebody that's going to be a problem to other

33:11

people down the road.

33:13

Speaking of that, What are the traits of

33:15

killers who hunt like Bundy, like

33:17

allegedly Coborger.

33:19

Well, I think the people that do

33:21

this have a lot of things that are

33:24

extremely similar. When he said, people

33:26

have a hard time understanding I

33:29

did it because I just like killing

33:31

people. Now, that's it. That

33:33

says it all. I just like

33:35

killing people.

33:36

Now.

33:36

One thing these people do, they have a tendency

33:39

to think that kind of they own them. They're

33:41

like God or something, and they go. I

33:44

decided whether they would live or die, and they

33:46

died. But I was also there

33:48

when they took their last breath

33:50

and breathed out their last breath, and

33:52

that's something that the family can't boast

33:54

about, or no one can, because

33:57

that's mine and that's mine forever. That's

33:59

why the and the ground

34:01

in which the murders occur, or even

34:03

the dumping sites if it's different,

34:06

become very sacred to

34:08

these people. And that is

34:10

across the board. You can go to Arthur

34:12

Shawcross, who would revisit

34:14

the sites, and so many of them do

34:17

Bundy. Bundy always went back

34:19

to these sites.

34:20

We know that Coburger did too as well.

34:22

The next morning, at least based on cell phone tower

34:25

records.

34:26

Oh yeah, you wanted to look at you, probably thinking my

34:28

work's in there. I've done all this work. Now, I've

34:30

done it. I've created my work. There it is.

34:33

Does anybody know yet? Do they know yet?

34:40

More on that next time. For

34:43

more information on the case and relevant photos,

34:46

follow us on Instagram at kat

34:48

Underscore Studios. The

34:50

Idaho Ascer is produced by Stephanie Leidecker,

34:53

Jeff Sheene, Connor Powell, Chris

34:56

Bargo, Gabriel Castillo, and

34:58

me Courtney Armstrong. Editing

35:01

and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music

35:04

by Jared Aston. The

35:06

Idaho Massacre is a production of iHeart Radio

35:08

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35:11

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35:43

I'm Diana. You may know as Body Moving, My

35:46

Friend and I. John Green were featured

35:48

in the Netflix documentary Don't f with Cats.

35:50

On our new podcast, True Crimes of John

35:53

and Deiana were turning our online investigative

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skills to some of the most unexplained, unsolved,

35:58

and most ignored cases.

36:01

Police say thirty three year old bride Again was

36:03

shot dead.

36:04

Gunned down in front of his two year old daughter.

36:07

Detectives confirmed that it was a targeted

36:09

attack.

36:09

It appears to be an execution style of

36:12

assassination.

36:13

This is very active, so we have to be careful.

36:15

I've heard that there's a house that has some

36:17

bodies in the basement.

36:19

I knew.

36:19

I just knew the move was wrong.

36:21

Maybe there's something more sinister at play

36:24

than just one young girl going missing.

36:26

If you know something, heard

36:28

something, please it's

36:31

never too late to.

36:32

Do the right thing.

36:33

This is true crimes with John and Deianna, the.

36:36

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