276: Idaho 4: Bryan’s Motive, His Graphic Google Searches & His Obsession

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Hey, True Crime Besties.

Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly.

Hello, hello, hello.

Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialessly with me, Annie Elise.

I hope you had a great weekend.

I am flying off to Boston right after this for the Karen Reed trial, so I am very busy finishing up packing, getting things ready.

I'm going to be there through the majority of this week covering the case and inside the courtroom, but it was a busy weekend full of packing and doing some last-minute stuff before I jump on the flight.

So I hope you had a nice weekend as well.

And for those of you who are following the Karen Reed trial and all that coverage, the recap that I put out at the end of this week will, of course, be from my time in the courtroom and, you know, my experience firsthand.

But as you probably know from the title of this episode, we are not here to talk about Karen Reed today.

We are here to talk about tons of new updates in the Idaho IV case.

Now, we have had some updates trickling in over the last couple of months because as we move closer and closer to the trial in August, this case, which once was under, you know, a very strict gag order, these pretrial motions are being filed.

So through that, we're getting a little bit of insight into some of the evidence that they are planning to present, some of the arguments and alibis and testimony that they're going to be using.

And so we've been able to piece together a little bit more information, such as, of course, the 911 call that was released, the text transcripts, different things like that.

the Amazon history, I mean, you name it.

Now, in addition to all of that, on Friday, May 9th, Dateline released a new episode on the case.

And let me just say, they were really doing their research and putting their time in when creating this episode because they promised new, never-before-seen things, and they weren't lying.

Now, the episode is around an hour and a half long, but I do highly recommend checking it out.

However, for now, I do want to go over the biggest takeaways.

I also want to talk through some of the theories, go over the new timelines that have been discovered.

I want to just talk through all of it.

So if that is something that you're interested in, you are in the right place and we are going to dive right in.

So like I said, this episode was about an hour and a half long and it was loaded with information.

So I want to break this down into a couple of parts.

First, we can briefly go over some of the new faces that we saw interviewed in this episode because these people who spoke were kind of, I think, interviewed a lot for the shock factor and to build on Brian's odd behaviors and his character pre-murders because it wasn't anyone who was directly related to the case.

You know, it wasn't any of the victim's family members or anything like that, but people connected by proxy, if that makes sense.

So I want to talk about them.

Then I want to go over the timeline because this was by far one of the biggest takeaways from this episode, at least for me.

And it really does focus on the movements leading up to the murders, the murders themselves, who was possibly the target, and some more detail regarding that.

And I also want to talk theories because as you can imagine, now with this new information, more theories are coming out, more speculation.

People are putting the puzzle pieces together.

Now, like I said, there weren't a whole lot of people interviewed for this episode.

And the people who were, I personally think that they were interviewed, not necessarily for shock factor, but to give more context as to Brian's character,

behaviors, pre-murders, things like that, rather than anything else, because they aren't actually directly connected with having anything to do with the case.

So, the first person that I want to briefly mention is Angela Neveus.

She's the mother of Maddie's best friend, Ashlyn.

Now, Angela briefly spoke about Ashlyn and Maddie's relationship, as well as Maddie's personality, you know, who she was as a person, her life, everything overall.

And Ashlyn isn't really someone whose name we're super familiar with, but the reason that I even wanted to mention it and why I wanted to mention this specific interview is because Ashlyn may not be someone that we know very well, but she very easily could have been.

You see, Ashlyn lived at King Road at that house not too long before the murders.

She had recently graduated and she decided that she was going to move back home with her parents inside their house so she could save money, start figuring out her career moves, what she wanted to do with her life.

And everyone else who lived in that house was still in college.

It was full of sorority girls partying, 24-7, just people in and out.

So it kind of made sense for her to move on with her life, to move back home and just, you know, start to leave that party life behind her.

However, as we all probably have come to know, November 12th was a very big day in Moscow.

And not only was it a big day in hindsight, given what happened, but it was a big game day.

And if you've ever been to college or ever watched Friday Night Lights or anything like that, you know how huge game day is.

Even if you don't like or enjoy football, it's game day.

The community is in chaos.

Everybody's excited.

There's so much energy.

Everybody's getting dressed up.

They're going out to party.

They want to celebrate.

It's a big day.

And it's basically kind of like an unwritten rule that you're going to celebrate.

And we know that's exactly what the roommates were doing that day.

So Ashlyn had made plans to stay with Maddie that night.

However, her plans ended up getting messed up when her parents' flight got rescheduled.

Because of that, she had to stay home and she had to watch over their dogs.

So she was going to miss the game day partying and she wasn't going to be able to spend the night with Maddie at the King Road house.

Now hearing that story really started to mess with me a bit.

And I'm sure if you watched it, it probably messed with you too, because she should have been with Maddie that night.

She would have been in bed with her, sleeping off the alcohol, thinking nothing of it.

And at the time, she was probably angry that she had to dog sit, right?

She was probably angry and bummed out that she had to miss out on all the fun, not even realizing that she likely would have died that night.

She likely would have been murdered had she gone.

And there's just no other way around it.

She would have been in the direct line of fire.

And that's a really scary thing to think about.

I don't know if you would call it divine intervention or God's plan, whatever you're comfortable calling it, but that has to weigh heavily on you knowing, holy shit, I could have died last night if I didn't just happen to have to stay home.

And what is it called?

Like the butterfly effect, right?

If her parents' flight hadn't been delayed or canceled, she wouldn't have had to stay home to watch her dogs.

She wouldn't still be alive.

It's just, it's eerie to think about.

Kind of like final destination-y too.

Now, like I said, some of these interviews did feel like they were a little bit for shock value or to illustrate character and behavior.

And I think that that was what was going on with this interview.

I think it was a little bit for shock value, but it worked.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I watched this episode.

But a change of plans may have saved her daughter's life.

How soon was it that you thought, my God, she was going to be there?

I didn't think about that right away.

All I could think about was the kids.

Makes you sad too, though.

It does.

Sorry.

Now, the second interview per se wasn't a direct interview with one person, but with a few other people who spoke out on one specific situation, which we're about to get into.

And I wanted to add this section of the episode in here because I think if it's true, it really does show some huge red flags in Brian leading up to the murders.

So there was this discussion about Brian being a teaching assistant, right?

And how not many people really liked him.

A lot of students felt like he was very sexist, that he would purposefully give women who were in the class bad grades, that he kind of had this like smug, arrogant attitude about him.

And being that he was a TA, he worked very closely with a woman named Nye Young-ko.

They shared an office together.

They worked side by side pretty frequently, right?

And like I said, everything I'm about to describe has come from other people recounting the events.

So everything has to be taken with a grain of salt because you know the game of telephone, how things can change over time.

So Nye Young and Brian would start to have these regular conversations.

Nothing major, just mindless chit chat here and there, but eventually she apparently started to get feelings for Brian.

The feelings were not mutual, however, and he apparently turned her down.

However, the two of them did stay friendly and then luckily things weren't too awkward between them.

But Nye Young was from Korea and she didn't really know anybody.

She didn't really have many friends, which seems to be almost why she clung to Brian a little bit.

They even lived in the same apartment complex.

So it was somebody who she worked with, she was close with, friendly with, they lived nearby, somebody who's almost like a comfort to her, right?

So when she came home late one night on September 10th, 2022, just a little over two months before the quadruple murders, her apartment had been broken into.

And she was spooked, so she reached out to Brian for comfort, for safety, for a close friend who's nearby.

And you might be thinking, well, why didn't she call the cops?

Well, because this wasn't exactly a typical break-in.

She didn't realize that somebody had been inside her home because the door was busted down and her things were scattered and thrown everywhere, which that honestly probably would have been better.

But what she found instead was something that was more out of like a psychological thriller or a horror movie.

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See, before she left her apartment, there was a cake that she had baked, and it was still sitting right there on top of the oven.

She had messed it up during the baking process, and it got burnt, but for whatever reason, she was pressed for time and she didn't have a chance to like chuck it in the garbage before leaving.

So she just left it there, right on top of the oven.

Yet, when she got home, the cake was inside the microwave.

And she didn't have roommates.

She didn't have anybody close in her life that she had given a spare key to either.

She knew that the cake was burned and that it was probably disgusting, so she definitely wouldn't have mindlessly put it in the microwave so that she could eat it later and store it.

It looked as though somebody came in and intentionally moved it.

And on top of that, she went into the bathroom and she found that all of her makeup was perfectly lined up on top of the toilet seat.

Which usually she kept her makeup on shelves in the bathroom.

So again, she knew without a doubt she isn't the one who mindlessly had done that, like organized it on top of a toilet seat.

Which ought to say, you can easily explain away, you know, a tube of mascara on on the floor, like maybe it rolled off the bathroom counter or even a puff thing that had fallen off.

Maybe you knocked it over and not, you didn't realize it.

But now, for her coming home to every single makeup product that she owned just neatly lined up where she never would have put it, that's enough to like fuel a nightmare.

It's very weird, right?

It's like, it's so intricate.

It's so detailed.

So at this point, she was looking around the house for any sign that somebody had broken in and she wanted to make sure she wasn't just like paranoid and losing it.

And as she was looking around, that's when she realized that two items that were very near and dear to her were nowhere to be found.

The two items missing were a watch that she wore almost daily and what Dateline described as a quote personal letter.

Now, I don't know if this is a love letter from, you know, the one that got away, a letter from a family member.

We don't know.

All we know is that it's the sort of thing that she kept in one spot, knew without a doubt where it was, and then knew that it was missing when she went looking for it.

So she, of course, freaked out and she didn't know if she should call the police or not.

There were no signs of forced entry.

There was no real, you know, technical threat to her.

So I'm sure she probably came to the realization that there was nothing that they could really do for her.

And I'm not saying that that's what should have happened and that she should not have called the police, but maybe she thought they wouldn't have taken her seriously.

Maybe call her crazy even being like, are you sure you didn't just organize the makeup that way?

Are you sure you didn't misplace it?

What kind of person is going to break into your house and move a cake into a microwave?

Starting to almost doubt herself, right?

Which really, if you're ever in a situation like that, call the police so that it's documented.

Maybe they can find Prince.

Maybe they can do something.

I don't know.

But the point is that scared with nobody else to call, she called Brian.

And he allowed her to come and stay over at his place after this.

Then after the incident, she got a very high-tech security system.

However, she was having a lot of difficulty putting it together.

So, again, she called her friend, I don't want to say knight in shining armor, but somebody who she trusted and relied on, and she called Brian, and he came to her rescue.

So, now with all of that information, fast forward, and after the quadruple murders happened of the Idaho students, and after Brian was arrested, she apparently began to wonder whether or not Brian was the one who had broken into her apartment that night.

Especially because, as the story goes, only a couple of days before the break-in, her apartment key that she usually kept in her desk at work was missing.

She had looked all around the office for it, even asked Brian if he had seen it or had seen anybody come into her office, because remember, they shared an office.

But he, of course, said, no, not at all.

I didn't see it.

I haven't seen anybody.

I'm not sure where it could be.

But then magically, out of the blue, she found the key right back where it always was, right where she had just been looking for it, but saw nothing.

Now, of course, there is zero proof that Brian was responsible for that.

She never called the police.

There was no incident report filed, no investigation looking into it.

But she feels like it very easily could have been him.

And she has taken that line of questioning even a step further, wondering if he even put her security camera information on his phone when he helped her install it.

Like saving all of that private login information so that he could dictate what's working, what's not,

watch who's coming, who's going.

And again, this is all purely speculation, but it does make sense, right?

So Dateline brought up this scenario to show that typical serial killers will test the waters before doing anything drastic.

They'll go from cyber stalking to then peeping in windows, then escalating it to maybe more physical stalking.

So, could that have been the case for Brian?

Possibly.

So, that kind of then leads us into the timeline of events that Dateline covered.

And it seems to me at least, like they were trying to establish, or at the very least, speculate that the murders were premeditated in some way, shape, or form.

Now, a lot of this timeline has to do with what was recovered from Brian's phone.

Because starting in July, his phone pinged at the cell tower closest to the house on King Road.

Then on August 16th, he made a Google search about Ted Bundy.

And this is what seems like the beginning of an almost obsession with Ted Bundy.

Because after Googling him, he also Googles a paper that was written by a professor about Bundy titled Ted Bundy on the Malignant Being, an analysis on the justificatory discourse of a serial killer.

Now, we also know that he was studying criminology.

So maybe this paper was for school, maybe it was personal, you know, interest.

We don't really know.

But what we do know is that he downloaded the paper, no doubt, to be able to thoroughly read it and study it.

And like I said, this was just the beginning of many different videos and searches on his devices regarding Ted Bundy.

And we also know, just going back a little bit too, he did, there was other things early on in this investigation that were released that indicated he did have some sort of, not obsession with serial killers, but curiosity, maybe that's the word.

And a lot of people do, right?

I'm sure a lot of people watching this have been curious about Dahmer, Bundy, whomever it is.

That doesn't necessarily make you a murderer.

Certainly not.

But coupled with other things that could show.

a pattern of escalation, maybe it is concerning.

So in the the months leading up to the murders, Brian's phone also showed some very interesting Google searches that are pretty pornographic in nature.

And the thing with Brian's searches was that he had a very niche type of porn that he was interested in.

He used specific words such as forced, passed out, drugged, asleep.

And those are just to name a few of them.

Now, again,

is that indicative of somebody being a murderer?

Certainly not.

Everybody is into their own kinks, their own things.

But you couple that with other things.

Force, passed out, drugged, just harsh sexual material.

Harsh for some, not all, I guess.

Does it illustrate something more?

Now, around this same timeline in September is when a department was broken into.

And on September 30th, Brian Googled sociopathic traits in college students.

Again, maybe it was part of a homework assignment, or maybe he was trying to self-diagnose.

And the reason I say that is because maybe he was curious about the symptoms, but we also know from when he was young, way back in his childhood, he did publicly post on different forms, public forms, about issues that he was struggling with, mental health issues even.

So could he be trying to say, like, my sociopath, let me Google it.

Sociopathic tendencies or sociopathic symptoms in college mail, like

concerning.

Then Then within the first two weeks in October, Brian's phone pinged three separate times at that cell tower that is closest to the King Road house.

So experts and honestly just your average Joe are speculating that in these times, Brian was likely studying the area, studying the house, casing the area, and checking things out, almost building a plan.

Which if that's the case, then it seems like he may have already known his target, which we'll get into more here shortly.

So let's talk about the victims for a moment, because these victims were young.

They were in college, they were on social media, and they were always on TikTok.

all the time.

You can see in video after video, just like curtains are open at night.

It's a party house.

People are coming and going.

So it's not a crazy assumption to guess that he would kind of just watch through the window and look and get an idea of the layout of the house, who was inside, what were people's routines, what were their comings and goings and patterns, things like that.

Then fast forward a little bit and on October 9th, more porn Google searches again.

Forced, drugged, those are the keywords.

Then on October 19th, Brian Googled, can sociopaths behave pro-socially?

And I think that this search is very, very interesting because pro-socially basically means acting as though you're empathetic, you're helping somebody, you're giving, there's kindness that you're exuding, that you're being nice to them, you know, helping them.

So for him to Google, can sociopaths behave pro-socially,

that with the other Google search of sociopathic symptoms in a college male, it makes me think he is trying to self-diagnose.

He wants to know the symptoms.

Then he's saying, okay, can a sociopath act like they're being kind?

Can they act like they're helping somebody?

Because if I am kind and if I am helping somebody, am I really a sociopath?

And this is just my opinion.

That's what I am, you know, garnering from these searches.

I could be way off.

Maybe he was just curious for work again or for school.

Who knows?

But I do think that it is a very specific and a very interesting search.

Then over the span of 13 days, he Googled his own name multiple times, just Brian Koberger, just seeing what results it yielded, just seeing what would come up, what's easily accessible.

I don't know.

And I will say, it's one thing to look up your name one time.

I feel like we've all probably done it just to see, you know, what does come up.

But multiple times over an almost two-week period,

that feels kind of odd, almost like he's looking for something specific or looking to see if he's hidden.

I don't know.

So then we move on to November, the month of the murders.

And on November 2nd, he had a meeting with some school officials to go over what they were describing as an improvement plan for Brian, for him as a TA.

Like I said, people didn't like him.

They felt he pretty much singled out women, that he graded papers harshly, and that he just was not good at that role.

Now, what had triggered this specific meeting though, it seems like maybe another red flag when you look back in hindsight.

Apparently, Brian had followed one of the female students out to her car and then ended up in some sort of confrontation with her.

Now about what?

We don't know.

I would assume that it had something to do with his teaching position.

Maybe an assignment, maybe an unfair grade.

I'm not exactly sure.

But what I do know is good for her, she immediately reported it and reported him.

I'm not sure if other people had maybe also reported him for giving women bad grades or if maybe that was just more town gossip.

I don't know, but there was at least one report made against him.

So then fast forward a little bit more and on October 7th, Brian's phone yet again pinged off the cell tower near King Road, near the King Road house, specifically.

And this was the 23rd time that it had pinged off of that tower within a very pretty short time.

time window as well.

Four months to be exact.

Four months, 23 pings, that's a lot lot for somewhere that you don't live nearby.

So now I want to get into the days leading up to the murders because on November 10th, Brian completely stopped using his debit card.

On the 11th, we know that he made an attempt to do what the legal documents refer to as anti-forensic methods to clear evidence from his school computer.

which and that's a direct quote okay and i do think that that detail was pretty important because it's almost like he knew that he was going to be leaving behind too many tracks and that also to me screams premeditation.

Why are you forensically trying to wipe your computer?

That doesn't feel very normal.

I don't know, not concrete guilty behavior, but certainly questionable.

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So by now, I think we're all pretty familiar with the movements the roommates had on the night of the 12th and the early morning hours of the 13th.

We've gone over that information ad nauseum.

I mean,

the food truck, going out, being back home.

And if you're not familiar with that information for any reason, if you're not caught up, definitely check out some of my other videos where I've covered the entire case, the full timeline, all of that.

But my point is that even though Dateline briefly went over where each of the roommates were that night, as well as when they got home, the main focus was on Brian.

And this is where things get pretty crazy.

And I have to just clarify, this is all just a major running theory.

But what I'm about to share is what the investigators and other experts believe to be exactly what Brian did that night.

So, in the early morning hours of November 13th, at 2.56 a.m., Brian turns off his phone.

Then, we're shown never-before-seen footage from the neighbor's security camera.

And this footage caught Brian's car continuously going around the block, lurking, potentially even gaining up the courage to allegedly do what he was going to do starting at 3.36 a.m.

And we had also heard about this in previous filings, right?

That

the car was seen, that it was like going in and out through the neighborhood on like only the outskirts where somebody who knew the area well would know.

So it wasn't any main roads.

And this is very much a reflection of that.

So at 3.33 a.m., the car was seen going around the block again.

Then again at 3.38 a.m., 3.40 a.m., 3.56 a.m., 3.58 a.m.

And at 4.06 a.m., the white car is seen going west, doing a U-turn, then going back toward the house.

And then finally, at 4.07 a.m., the car drives by one last time.

Now, this is when the investigators believe Brian parked his car, probably a few blocks away, or at the very least, out of sight, and then went into 1122 King Road on foot.

Now, I know that there's a lot of controversy about the house being demolished prior to Brian's trial.

People are scared that it's going to affect the trial and that the jury should be able to do a walkthrough.

And while I do understand those fears and they are definitely valid, I do want to say that this episode contained an animated mock-up of the house that was pretty dang accurate.

And I was never confused at any point, like, where is this happening at now?

What were his movements?

How did this person get up the stairs and all that?

Are we on the third floor or the second floor?

You can see everything very clearly.

I think it's very well done.

And so it gives me hope that something similar can be used during the trial for the jurors.

And like I said, these next few details are alleged and they are purely theories.

But the investigators believe that Brian went through the sliding glass door on the second floor of the house, which was right there at the kitchen.

And even though it is considered the second floor, it basically is the entry level.

It's level with the ground.

So it's not like he had to climb up any stairs or any walls or anything like that.

Literally just walking at ground level right in.

Then once he was inside, he went all the way up to the third floor to Maddie's room, which is only one staircase up because again, the second floor is that ground level.

Now, this is why the investigators believe that Maddie was always his intended target and that everybody else was unfortunately just kind of collateral damage.

And I made my theory very known since day one, well before the state line episode, well before any of this information started coming out in the last few months, but I always believed that Maddie was the target and that the reason Kaylee died is because she wasn't supposed to be there.

She wasn't supposed to be sleeping next to Maddie, that his rage, his killing, allegedly Brian, was directed at Maddie.

And that when he saw Kaylee there, he got so pissed off because she was ruining his plan.

I believe, especially given the pornographic searches on his phone, I believe that there was intention to sexually assault Maddie personally.

He didn't, but I do believe that was what the plan was.

I believe.

he was going to sexually assault her and potentially kill her.

And then when Kaylee was there next to her, it caught him off guard and he was pissed because here Kaylee was ruining his plan.

So he, of course, had to kill her.

And I also believed that when he, after he was done with that, he was going downstairs.

And because we know Xana was on TikTok, that she may or may not have ordered the DoorDash from Jack in the Box and all that, that he either heard her or saw her.

killed her, Ethan intervened or was nearby and had no choice to kill him too.

And if you've ever watched any of my last videos over the last year and a half, two years even, I said, I think that's why he bypassed Dylan, the surviving roommate, because he really had no intention of killing four people that night.

He was physically exhausted.

And that although the adrenaline got him through it, his body was tired and he was tired.

So that's why he just walked.

past Dylan, not even looking at her.

Just got, I got to get out, got to get out.

Just tunnel vision as to escaping.

So now in this dateline episode, we are getting some more clarity into that.

And while I was dead on in some regards, the piece with Xana

and where her exact whereabouts were, not as accurate.

Pretty accurate, but not exactly.

So let me go back a little bit.

So the investigators believe that Maddie was the target, as I mentioned.

And they believe that he was surprised when he went into Maddie's room and saw both her and Kayleigh lying there.

And this next part is really, really difficult to think about and imagine.

I understand that.

But we know that Xana was awake.

She, as I said, she was on TikTok not too long before the murders and she had just ordered that DoorDash.

So the investigators believe that Xana heard all of the commotion that was going on upstairs in Maddie's room, that she may have even been in the kitchen at this point, not in the bedroom, that she heard the cries, the barks, the loud thumps, and that it would have been very concerning for her.

So that because of that, she went upstairs to the third floor where Maddie's room was so that she could see what was happening, make sure that everything was okay.

Now, we don't know for sure if Brian or whoever the killer was shut Maddie's door behind him, but based on what the investigators think happened, it does seem unlikely.

Because they think that Xana went upstairs and that when she got to Maddie's bedroom door, she very likely saw both of her friends bleeding out, if not already dead, with Brian just standing right there on top of them, dressed in all black and holding a knife.

So they say Xana likely sprinted down the stairs in an attempt to make it to her door to lock the bedroom door, but you also have to remember that these kids had been drinking.

They had been drinking pretty much all day.

So the fact that she was able to even react fast enough to get down the stairs without falling is a huge accomplishment in and of itself and beyond me.

But as they believe, sadly, they think that she only made it to her bedroom door before Brian caught up with her.

And as we all know, at that point, based on her injuries and her defensive wounds, she did put up a hell of a fight.

Her injuries, especially the injuries to her fingers, were extensive.

She was trying her hardest to make it out of that experience alive, giving it it all, and so much so that some of her fingers reportedly were detached, not fully detached, but almost detached.

And as we of course know, sadly, she wasn't successful and she succumbed to her injuries.

Now, Ethan, who was found on Xana's bed, was likely sleeping when all of this first started happening.

And you got to keep in mind, too, it all happened so fast.

Even if he woke up to Xana's screams or her cries for help and he was concerned, there was nowhere that he could go to or escape.

And to be fair, I'm not even sure if he was awake.

The episode detailed that Ethan did not seem to put up much of a fight, and that based on blood spatter analysis, Brian only had to stab him one time to kill him because it hit a major artery.

Again, whether or not there didn't seem to be a fight because he was still asleep or still drunk, still passed out, or because that initial knife wound hit the major artery and killed him, we don't know.

But the truly sick thing is that even after both Xana and Ethan were dead, Brian took his time with Ethan.

He started carving, this is a direct word, not my word, started carving his lower legs.

Now, what he carved exactly, we don't know.

But this, I think, also kind of ties back to Kaylee being in the room.

I think he was angry at Ethan.

I think that he was pissed that he was ruining the plan.

And even more so, to take it a step further, and this is just purely my opinion, based on what we know and based on information from his track record.

I think that Brian hated women.

And I think he hated men who had the opportunity to be with women.

Another word for that that you may call it is an incel.

And I did a video on this with Elliot Rogers, who was an infamous incel who went on a killing spree and the similarities between him and Brian Koberg and what I thought.

And based on Brian's history with allegedly grading women too harshly, hating women, wanting to punish them, looking up explicit material about forcing them to do things, drugging them to do things.

I think he hated women.

And I also think that's why he was targeting a woman.

But I think he also hated men, especially men who were with a woman the way he wanted to be with a woman.

So the fact that Ethan was in Xana's bedroom, I think he just fueled and hated him.

And that is why he

quote carved his legs.

I don't think there would be any other explanation for that.

Why would you take your time after you've already killed somebody carving them unless you were truly trying to just inflict your hatred on them, right?

So then after all four of them were deceased, he reportedly sat down in a bedroom chair in Xana's bedroom and took a break, just kind of looking at what he had done, exhausted.

Remember, I talked about earlier how the adrenaline overpowered him and then his body just physically starts to calm down and shut down.

And the reason that the investigators are even able to verify that this happened is because there were imprints in blood on the the chair, which is sick.

And I've also seen some theories out there, which I'll just mention here, that not only did he take a seat because he was tired and just kind of like absorbing what had just happened and recalibrating himself, but possibly even if he was wearing a hazmat type suit or clothing, whatever he was wearing, to sit down and start removing everything and putting it in a bag that he brought with him to leave so that he wouldn't have blood behind him or that he wouldn't have blood transfer in his car.

Again, that's just a theory, just speculation.

But then after he got up, he decided that he was going to leave through that same sliding glass door that he came in through.

And that, of course, is when Dylan opened her bedroom door.

She wanted to see what was going on.

She saw him, had a frozen blank stare at him.

He walked directly by her and walked out the sliding door.

And something I wanted to take a second to also mention really quick is that Dateline handled the situation with the surviving roommates really, really well.

I mean, I have seen the most insane accusatory things about both of the girls over the years.

And honestly, with all of the text messages, the call logs, the delayed 911 call, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse.

And regardless what your opinion is, everybody can think that they handled or mishandled things, sure.

However, this episode touched on the fact that Dylan is very lucky that she's even alive today.

I mean, both Bethany and Dylan, but especially Dylan, because she saw him.

And if she wouldn't have frozen in that doorway, she might have been the fifth victim.

Very well could have been.

If she had screamed, if she had yelled, you know, if she had said like, who are you, any of it?

I have no doubt in my mind that Brian would have killed her as well, just like he had to kill everybody else who he came into contact with who was ruining his plan.

Clearly, he had no qualms about killing Xana when she caught him.

So what would have stopped him from doing the same thing to Dylan?

Now, with that being said, is it ideal that both of them waited so long to call 911?

Of course not.

It's not ideal.

But this episode really highlighted the fact that they both were no doubt in shock and probably also in a state of just being completely cognitively disassociating from everything.

Just what your body will do when you go into fight or flight mode.

So it's almost like they knew in their minds that something was wrong, but that it was all too overwhelming.

Like if they just avoided the situation, it wouldn't be true.

That they didn't want to actually believe that anything scary was happening.

Dylan even said when running to Bethany's room that night that she saw Xana laying in her doorway with her head towards the wall and her feet were toward the door.

Her brain told herself that she had just passed out from being really drunk.

But we of course know that around Xana's body was a large pool of blood.

But Dylan's brain literally may not have even let her recognize that or see that.

The brain works in so many different mysterious kinds of ways, trying to protect you, trying to protect itself.

And so I think they did a good job handling that.

And I also just wanted to touch on that here.

I have talked with a lot of experts in the field and survivors who have told me even when something does look like a bloodbath, when you're in that moment, you don't even see it, which is so gnarly to think about, but that is your brain truly trying to protect yourself.

So now based on what the investigators are saying, their theory is Xana shouldn't have died that night, Ethan shouldn't have died that night, and Kaylee shouldn't have.

But they got in the way of his plan to go after Maddie.

And because Xana caught Brian, allegedly, of course, he panicked.

Now, did she really make it all the way upstairs or did he hear her in the kitchen?

I don't know.

We probably will find more of those details out during the trial.

And I don't know if we'll find that out just through her phone activity, if her phone moved up the stairs with her or if it stayed, if it remained downstairs.

And when he was coming down, he saw her in the kitchen.

We, again, don't know the exact movements, but this is what the investigators believe.

Now, because of this theory, they believe that because he was caught off guard in Maddie's room, that's the reason he left the sheath behind.

The same knife sheath that is quite literally holding the entire case against him together.

I mean, yes, okay, maybe that's slightly exaggerated.

There's plenty of other evidence against Brian, but most of it is circumstantial.

This is the one piece of DNA evidence that they have.

So they're saying that because she caught him off guard, he dropped the sheath.

It was under Maddie.

He forgot to retrieve it and he went and booked it and chased after her.

Then, you know, he killed her.

He killed Ethan when he saw Ethan.

And then his mind probably wasn't even thinking like, oh shit, I left the sheath upstairs.

He just knew he needed to get out of the house and it was all left behind, which

when you would think about it that way, if that is how it really panned out, if he didn't just get caught up in the moment and leave it there, but if it's because Dana caught him off guard, she is a hero, right?

Because had he not left the sheath behind, I don't know if the police would have found the guy.

Right.

Maybe, maybe.

I mean, I would imagine that their police work, they were on different things.

They have the surveillance, of course, but that is like the solid piece of evidence.

I think that's pretty intense, but also remarkable to think about.

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So then at 4.17 a.m., likely when Brian was finishing up and about to leave, the neighbors' security camera footage picked up something that we had not seen or heard until now.

Because on their camera, Kaylee's dog Murphy can be heard continuously barking.

And the bark isn't like what happens when a stranger knocks on the door.

This bark is a bark of pure panic and terror.

A dog began to bark.

As if something was wrong.

Then at 4.20 a.m., Brian's car is seen on the neighbor's surveillance camera footage leaving the area.

And when I say leaving, leaving, it definitely is more of an accurate description to say he's like fleeing the scene because he is driving so fast.

You can even hear the tires screeching in the video.

And this is something that we talked about very early on, probably two years ago.

I did a full map time where I showed you like his car going through the neighborhood or the killer's car or whatever going through the neighborhood and how they booked it and like went so fast.

The whole thing, I mean, it's 13 minutes in total from when his car was last seen circling the block and when the car was seen fleeing the scene at 4.20 a.m.

13 minutes, which it's so

difficult to understand how all of that could happen in less than 15 minutes.

I mean, four lives just gone, obliterated.

And I have seen so many people who are what they deem themselves as or what other people pro-burgers, people who think Brian is innocent, being set up, being framed.

I've seen a lot of people be like, it's impossible.

He had to have a second person or there were multiple people involved.

It wasn't him.

There's no way you can kill four people in 11 minutes because that was what the timestamp was when we talked about him coming in, going out, whatever,

allowing him a minute to come in and a minute to leave.

So 11 minutes of a window.

Do the math, okay?

I get that it seems impossible, but do the math.

If you have 11 minutes and you're killing four people, That gives you about what, two and a half minutes per person.

I don't, I'm not going to do the exercise here, but set a timer on your phone for two and a half minutes and take your arm and just go like this.

Throw in some fighting things like this, two and a half minutes.

It's a long time.

That is a long time to stab someone and kill them.

Not to mention Ethan had the one fatal stab wound directly to the artery that would have made him bleed out and kill him.

So you certainly.

could with a k-bar knife you certainly could kill four people in 10 minutes.

Absolutely.

It's awful to think about.

I know it's uncomfortable to think about.

I think it's also very uncomfortable to do that exercise, but think about that.

And to take it a step further, just to go back to tie in like the exhaustion and him sitting in the chair, the body print and blood, all that.

And then walking past Dylan thinking like, oh, like, I'm like, I can't even see straight.

I'm just going out.

Even going like this for two and a half minutes.

is exhausting.

Do that while you're fighting somebody with defensive wounds for 11 minutes.

You're going to be pretty exhausted.

I don't care how much adrenaline is coming over you.

But my point in bringing all of that up is it certainly is achievable.

With a sharp K-bar blade, definitely.

Against four kids who are intoxicated, who, even if they're fighting back, probably aren't very strong or quick enough to fight back, certainly you could do it.

So then after the car takes off, At 4.48 a.m.

Brian's phone turns back on.

And this time it pinged way further away and eventually pinged back at his apartment.

Which an interesting detail about his movements that morning is that at 6.17 a.m., he made a 36-minute phone call to his dad.

And this was the first of three calls that he made to his dad that morning, the longest one being almost an hour long, which apparently Dateline reached out to his family to comment on these calls, but he never responded.

So they never got that comment.

Now, do I think that these calls are indicative of anything?

Do I think it's kind of like how Brian Laundrie called his parents after what he did to Gabby?

Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe it was just him talking to his dad.

I don't know.

Maybe he just felt guilty.

He wanted to talk to his parents to calm the nerves.

Maybe he wanted to not make an alibi, but kind of by telling them like, oh yeah, I went stargazing last night.

Or, hey, like, so they would say, oh, we talked to him that morning.

He sounded normal.

He sounded fine.

I don't know, but it is something to think about and consider.

Now, we also already knew about Brian allegedly making his way back to the crime scene that morning at around 9:12 a.m.

We were unclear of what that was.

My opinion and speculation from years ago was that maybe he wanted to see if it had actually turned into a crime scene yet.

Maybe he was going back to get his sheath because he noticed it was gone.

Maybe he just wanted to revel in his handiwork, like we know so many killers like to do.

They return to the scene of the crime, they like to watch it all unfold, almost to feel the thrill again and get off on it.

And we know that his phone pinged around that house again at 9-12 a.m.

And that was also shortly before his selfie, where he's smiling with the thumbs up in the bathroom.

So was he thinking he got away with it?

I can't imagine.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Then there were also some things we saw with his cell phone data from that morning where it looked as though he was, he had turned his phone off again, turned it back on.

And I was like, oh, in my mind, again, he's disposing of the murder weapon, getting rid of, burning the clothes, probably burying stuff, who knows?

And sure enough, in this new information, it shows that about an hour after he took that infamous selfie, his phone phone pinged about 35 miles south of Pullman.

Now, the investigators do have a working theory of what he was doing during this time.

Apparently, there's a river nearby, so they believe it is very likely that at this time he was disposing of the evidence.

Whether that was the knife, the bloody clothes, all of it.

Who knows?

So we've gone over now Brian's movements and his timelines before and during the murders.

But now I want to quickly go over what he was doing after the murders, because I personally think that it shows that he was really starting to worry about the very real possibility of being caught.

Because two days after the murders, on November 15th, Brian was right back on Amazon looking up the same K-bar knife and knife sheath, the one that he had already purchased months prior.

He even added it to his cart, then went through the whole checkout process, everything to, you know, to where you're about to check out, but at the last minute, he didn't go through with the purchase.

Then on the 16th, he googled University of Idaho murders.

And on the 18th, he was pretty busy because his phone records show he watched a TV show about Ted Bundy, a YouTube video about the Idaho IV victims, arguably his victims.

Then, he went to the DMV and he got his license plate switched out from Pennsylvania to Washington.

He even took photos on his phone of his car and the new plates on it, which it doesn't take a rocket scientist to break all of of that down.

He was definitely looking up what the investigators were sharing about the murders, seeing if they were all onto him, seeing what the YouTube video was about it, which maybe it'll come out in trial.

Wonder if good old Brian Koberger watched this video.

But then he switched the license plates so that if any cameras, which feels like a no-brainer, if any cameras saw his car or caught his car, it won't look like the same vehicle.

It'll look like an out-of-state vehicle.

Then over the next six weeks, he continuously was looking up the murders, whether it was online, YouTube videos, wherever, he was constantly looking into it, doing research on the latest updates in the case.

And on November 22nd and also on December 6th, he again started looking up K-bar knives, utility knives, knife sheaths.

And each time he went through the process of putting things in his cart, almost like he was going to buy something.

But then he didn't for whatever reason.

And maybe this is just my assumption, but you have to think about the fact that Brian was not dumb.

He was getting his doctorate degree.

He was studying criminology.

He had been doing all of his own research into big serial killers, like big names, Bundy, Dahmer, BTK, you name it.

So I have to wonder if he was going back and forth between buying a new knife sheath and knife, also that if the time ever came for him to be questioned, he could just hand those over as a decoy of sorts.

The knife sheath wouldn't be the same exact one left at the crime scene.

It wouldn't come back as the murder weapon.

Would they be identical though?

Sure.

But those weapons and sheath wouldn't have been the ones that technically killed four kids.

So there are plenty of flaws to this plan, clearly, which he must have realized because it's like your purchase history will still prove that you purchased a replacement set.

But for whatever reason, yeah, he never bought them.

Now, apparently, as time went on, Brian began acting more and more paranoid.

And this came from what Dateline described as a source very close to the investigation.

They said that his family noticed he was behaving very oddly.

And I guess one of his family members even said to Brian's dad, could Brian have killed those students?

Allegedly, he was consistently sorting through the garbage at his parents' house too.

That's when he started wearing gloves when he was messing with the trash.

Just very paranoid behavior.

Now, maybe they thought he was being a germaphobe.

Maybe, like I said, he was just really well educated in criminology.

I don't know.

Maybe he knew they would come sorting through the trash for his DNA, which, to be fair, they did.

Do sources have concerns about any of the evidence, specifically the DNA on the knife sheath, or how the evidence was collected by law enforcement?

We did talk about that.

We got into it in some detail.

It may not have been

quite in the rule book.

But in a case where they felt that there was a significant public interest in finding the answer, they may have gone outside the rule book to get the information they did.

And again, all of those things are just alleged.

They didn't come directly from any of his family members being interviewed on this episode or anything like that.

So who really knows what's true, what's not?

But I do believe that Dateline would not air information that had not been vetted or come from a very likely source.

They usually are very careful of litigation.

So.

I think there is some credibility there.

And I say it every time we get into new details with this case, but as the trial comes closer, there is just going to be more and more information that we learn, which I think the biggest thing that I'm still stuck on is the why.

Now, pretty early on in this episode, Dateline made it very clear that there is still no official correlation between Brian and any of the roommates.

He did have a lot of pictures of young girls on his phone, though, but none of them were Maddie, Kaylee, Xana, or even any of the surviving roommates.

Now, apparently, lots of girls in these photos were students at the college, and some people were even mutual friends with the victims on Instagram, you know, following each other back and forth.

But like I said, there were no pictures of any of the victims specifically.

I find it very

telling that there was other students that are supposed to be in their friend circles that are on that phone for sure.

Based on what we know, which let's be real, is probably very little compared to what the investigators know, Brian just kind of woke up one day and started basically stalking that house on King Road.

Now, I will say there was also a girl who was in the state line who had been at like a pool party where Brian was.

They had talked a little bit.

They talked about hiking.

They exchanged numbers.

And he ended up sending her a text message the following day saying, hey, I'm pretty sure we met at the party or whatever.

We were talking about hiking.

I very much enjoy that activity.

Kind of fishing for an invitation to go hiking, which she in this episode says, you know, could I have been a victim?

Like inferring that, saying it's just scary to think about.

But that's not even clear of any sort of connection necessarily.

It's all just speculation.

What we do at least seem to know now as a concrete fact, not just speculation, or I should say not just my previous speculation, but it does seem like Maddie was the target, which again, I feel like was the running theory for quite some time now, at least my running theory.

We just don't know why or when his initial sights got set on her.

And maybe we never will know that, or maybe we will learn an even more in-depth timeline during his trial.

And speaking of his trial, too, the very tail end of the episode kind of highlighted what could become a very real possibility, because they they theorized that Brian's defense team will try to create reasonable doubt by providing an alternate suspect, this all based on a new tip that his defense team has received.

Not only that, but apparently the state also failed to ever test the unidentified blood sample on the banister inside the house and on the glove that was outside of the house.

So does this immediately mean that Brian is the wrong guy?

Not necessarily, but it could mean that the defense has a slightly better argument that it wasn't him.

Again, that's just the theory the dateline was tossing around, but it could become very real here in just a few short months.

So I'm really curious to know what you guys think.

Do you think that Brian's the guy, or are you still somebody who maybe sits in the camp of him being innocent and being framed?

It's going to be interesting to see what comes out over the next couple of months regarding this case.

It is interesting because as of last Thursday, there was a hearing regarding the case about what witnesses were going to be testifying, what evidence was allowed in, would the trial be live streamed?

And they did confirm the trial will be live streamed on the court's website.

So we actually are going to be attending in person as well, but we will be covering it regardless whether we are in the courthouse or if we're live streaming it with you like we've been doing in the off weeks of Karen Reed.

So make sure you subscribe and follow the podcast if you are not already so that you don't miss any of those updates.

But yeah, they did confirm it will be live streamed.

They also discussed how when Dylan and Bethany do testify that they will have the choice of whether or not their testimony is live streamed, whether it's audio only or muted completely.

And they also said that should they want to attend the trial, they will of course have seats in the courthouse reserved for them.

So I thought that that was an interesting take.

We haven't heard situations and details like that in other cases before.

But it's coming up.

We are what, maybe eight to 10 weeks out.

I don't know the exact math, but it's going to be here before we know it.

So I will be covering it every every single week with you, maybe even daily.

We'll see how it goes.

So like I said, if you're not following the podcast yet, take a quick second, make sure that you're following so that you don't miss those updates.

Other than that, I will be back with you on Friday this week with Karen Reed trial updates.

I'll be back with you on Thursday with headline highlights with everything going down this week in True Crime.

And then of course, back with you again Monday.

It's like we're together every day.

Maybe this just needs to become a daily podcast show.

I don't know.

You tell me.

Tell me either on Spotify in the QA section or on Apple Reviews.

Do we make this a new daily show Monday through Friday?

Do you really need that much true crime every single day?

Maybe you do.

Maybe you're like me and maybe you do, but it feels like I'm with you every day already.

So anyway, thank you guys so much for tuning in.

And until the next one, be nice.

Don't kill people.

Stay safe.

Don't befriend Brian Koberger and just take care of your well-being.

All right.

Thanks guys.

Bye.

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