Organ Donor Scandal & Kohberger Sentenced | 7.24.25

are questions that take cultures thousands of years to answer.

During Answer the Call, I take questions from people just like you about their problems, opportunities, challenges, or when they simply need advice.

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Grief, responsibility?

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Everyone has their own destiny.

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RFK Jr.

is pushing for reform of the organ transplant system after an investigation found what he called horrifying results.

I mean, if the patient's dying, but they take the patient's organs before they die,

that's euthanasia.

What did the investigation find and what plans does the agency have for change?

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley.

It's Thursday, July 24th, and this is Morningwire.

University of Idaho killer Brian Koberger is confronted by the loved ones of his victims before learning his fate.

I sentence the defendant to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

And protests erupt in the UK after an asylum seeker is accused of sexually assaulting a local girl.

And now several protesters have been arrested.

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Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

is demanding reforms to the organ transplant system after a shocking investigation found organs were nearly harvested from dozens of patients who showed signs of life.

Here with more is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestijakimo.

So Amanda, let's get into this investigation.

What did they find?

So this investigation was taken on by HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration.

They looked at 351 cases out of Kentucky where organ donation was approved but not completed.

103 of those cases, about 30%,

showed what HHS called concerning features, including 73 patients who showed neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.

At least 28 patients may not have been dead at the time the organ procurement had started.

Some of these patients died within hours, but others lived for multiple days, and some became well enough to actually leave the hospital.

Now, outside of this investigation, the New York Times recently highlighted some incredibly disturbing cases where pushes for organs threatened potential donors.

In one case, a 42-year-old Alabama woman had her chest cut open and her breastbone sawed before the doctors noticed that her heart was still beating and she was breathing.

Kennedy, who leads HHS, called the investigation findings horrifying, and his department said that they found a systemic disregard for the sanctity of life.

Kennedy said that organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to these transplants will be held accountable.

He added that the entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor's life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.

So it sounds like Kennedy is calling out the organ procurement organizations.

Is that who he's blaming here?

Yeah, so the findings did list a number of issues that need to be addressed, such as poor neurological assessments and the lack of coordination within medical teams.

But the ethics of organ procurement organizations known as OPOs were specifically called into question.

Now, this federal inquiry was actually first sparked by a case involving a Kentucky man who overdosed in 2021.

Now that OPO, which is now called the Network for Hope, was the center of that investigation.

While hospital staffers were apparently uncomfortable moving forward, they were scared they were actually committing euthanasia, an OPO coordinator assured staffers that everything was above board.

Eventually, though, a doctor said he wouldn't move forward and the man in question apparently cried, pulled his knees to his chest, and shook his head.

That patient became well enough to leave the hospital, and he's still alive today.

Two former employees of that OPO told the Times the organ harvesting of that man would have 1,000% moved forward, if not for that doctor putting a stop to the OPO.

Three other former employees said they witnessed similar cases.

Horrifying.

So what sort of reforms are being suggested?

Well, we actually heard directly from Barry Masa.

He's the CEO of Network for Hope that OPO from Kentucky.

He said they're committing their own internal investigations and they've implemented new standards to protect organ donors.

Here he is before Congress on Wednesday.

We have devised a checklist for every nurse that is on a DCD case and we provide that to them in real time.

We did the same thing with every attending physician.

We've implemented hard stops so that during any part of the process, they could raise those concerns.

HHS has outlined a number of procedures for OPOs to follow, and they're demanding they adopt a formal formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process if there are patient safety concerns kennedy has also threatened to decertify opios if they fail to comply with corrective actions outlined by hhs now wrapping up here amanda what sort of reactions have we seen to this report well you know tens of thousands of transplants are performed every year across the u.s they extend and save lives and americans do have a giving spirit it's estimated that about 170 million americans are organ donors Now, with these findings being published, some folks online are saying that they're not comfortable right now being organ donors and they don't want their loved ones to be either until this issue is resolved and the lives of potential organ donors are protected.

So it sounds like valid reasons to be concerned, but HHS is looking into it.

Amanda, thanks for reporting.

You're welcome.

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Brian Koberger was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of four University of Idaho students on Wednesday.

The victims' families spoke at the sentencing with Koberger in the room.

Daily Wire reporter Maired Alordi is here with more.

Hey, Mairead.

So tell us about this very emotional sentencing hearing.

Hi, John.

Yes, so Koberger was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Sana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.

He stabbed the four University of Idaho students in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022, at an off-campus house.

Investigators said he had no connection to the victims, but he had planned the murders for months.

Koberger, who is age 30 and a former PhD student of criminology, had been facing trial next month, but he suddenly changed his plea to guilty for the four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in order to avoid the death penalty.

The families and friends of the victims spoke at Wednesday sentencing hearing.

Some could hardly keep from weeping, and some spoke directly to Koberger and showed their anger, and some even said they forgave him.

Meanwhile, Koberger sat and stared with a straight face.

Overall, just a really striking scene.

Indeed.

So, what did some of those victim impact statements look like?

Olivia Gonsalvez, who's the sister of victim Kaylee, delivered a searing statement in which she told her sister's murderer to sit up straight.

And onlookers wondered whether she might have gotten under Koberger's skin.

Some of these might be familiar, so sit up straight when I talk to you.

If you were really smart, do you think you'd be here right now?

What's it like needing this much attention just to feel real?

You're terrified of being ordinary, aren't you?

You didn't win.

You just exposed yourself as the coward you are.

You're a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser.

Madison Mogan's dad said his daughter supported him in his struggle with addiction.

Maddie was my only

child that I ever had.

She's She's the most, she's the only

great thing I ever really did, and the only thing I was really ever proud of.

And

I thought we would have

the rest of our lives together.

Dylan Mortensen, the roommate who survived Koberger's brutal attack, spoke as well.

What happened that night changed everything

because of him for beautiful,

genuine,

compassionate people

were taken from this world.

He is a hollow vessel, something less than human.

Kayleigh Gonsalve's father actually physically turned the lectern to face his daughter's killer.

Today, we are here to finish what you started.

Today,

you've lost control.

Today we are here to prove to the world that you picked the wrong families.

Kim Kernodle, the aunt of Zonna Kernodle, said she has already forgiven Koberger.

You know, this is probably going to

bother everybody, but Brian.

I'm here today to tell you I have forgiven you because I no longer could live with that hate in my heart.

And for me to become a better person,

I have forgiven you.

Koberger said he respectfully declined to speak at his sentencing hearing.

He will likely be incarcerated in Idaho's only maximum security prison near Boise, which was opened in the 80s to house the state's most disruptive male residents.

Well, hopefully this is the justice these families waited for these last three years.

Mairead, thanks so much for reporting.

Thanks, John.

Protests have erupted in the British town of Epping around a hotel being used to house asylum seekers, one of whom allegedly attacked a local girl.

Local reports say more than a thousand protesters have taken to the street and several people have been arrested.

Joining us now to discuss is Guy Dampierre of the Prosperity Institute.

Guy, thanks for coming on.

Thank you very much for having me.

So there have been protests in Epping over a hotel housing asylum seekers and there's allegations now of a sexual assault.

So what exactly is going on in Epping?

So protests began last Thursday and they've carried on over the weekend and they're about a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by an asylum seeker living in a nearby hotel.

Now, the government has failed to stop the small boat crossings that have been going on since 2018.

So that's asylum seekers getting in small boats, going across the English Channel, and then basically getting picked up and brought into Britain.

And over 100,000, I think we're closing on 200,000, have come in this way over the last seven years.

So there are so many of them that what they've had to do is they had to put them up in hotels.

But the problem is, for a lot of towns, the hotel is the place where people go to have their weddings or their celebrations.

So people are very upset that no matter where they live in the country, they're now getting a hotel with a large number of young foreign men, completely unvetted and sometimes violent and dangerous.

Right.

Now, the claim is a sexual assault of a local girl by one of these asylum seekers.

Is the blowback contained to Epping, or is there a sense that there's growing backlash in other areas as well?

I think there is at the moment.

There are so many headlines coming out that the mood in the country is changing enormously.

I mean, it's very telling that Epping itself is not a poor northern town like the ones that rioted last year.

This is a very leafy area.

It's close to London.

You know, these are nice middle-class people who are coming out in the streets angrily.

And that's in large part because not only have we had this massive increase in illegal immigration, but also in legal immigration.

We've had millions of people move here.

It's becoming increasingly clear that that is changing the face of the country at a speed that people are very uncomfortable with.

There was a story this week based on Freedom of Information requests, which showed that there are more than 2,000 schools in Britain where more than half the pupils don't speak English as their first language.

And there were two schools, but they couldn't find a single pupil who had English as their first language.

You have to ask yourself, how are people going to integrate when there's nobody left for them to integrate into?

So 2,000 schools and two with no English speakers.

That's incredible.

So is it just the culture clash or is there something else going on here?

I think there is more than that.

There's the danger, there's the culture, but there's also a third element, which is that Britain's not having a great time of it economically.

And immigration has always been promised as something that's a bit of a financial boon, that would always be a free lunch.

And it's not worked out like that at all.

It's actually just become a massive welfare magnet.

So again, we had another very recent story saying that there are now 1.3 million foreigners who are claiming universal credit, which is the main form of benefits.

So it's not all the benefits, that's just the main kind of benefits.

So it's a huge number of people, and it's a huge proportion of the foreigners that live in Britain.

And we had another story recently that said that the amount of money being paid out every month in universal credit is getting close to a billion pounds a month.

So to give some context, last year the government said that there was an enormous financial crisis because we had a 22 billion pound black hole in public finances.

Well, with these statistics, more than half of that would just be foreigners claiming benefits.

That's not good for the economy.

Definitely some eye-popping statistics there, and it sounds like just clearly not a sustainable situation.

Guy, thanks for coming on.

Oh, it's good fun to be on the DW.

Thanks for waking up with us.

And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe.

We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.