Bryan Kohberger's Explosive Sentencing: Roommates Speak Out, Families Give Victim Statements, with Howard Blum, Phil Holloway, and Matt Murphy | Ep. 1114

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Speaker 14 Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at Noon East.

Speaker 14 Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, starting today at a special time.

Speaker 14 It's 11 o'clock Eastern and a big, big day for True Crime and the show with the sentencing of Brian Kohlberger, which we will be bringing to you live. They are still filing into the courtroom.

Speaker 14 At this moment, we expect the proceedings to get underway any second. We will cede our airtime to the proceeding once it does.

Speaker 14 And we've got our full panel of legal experts to walk you through the whole thing when it's over or when there are breaks.

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Speaker 14 And that way you won't miss any of those shows or the legal commentary that they'll be offering twice a week on all things legal. And I'll be over there as well.

Speaker 14 Want to get to the Kohlberger sentencing now joining me as we await the proceedings to get underway.

Speaker 14 Howard Bloom, author of When the Night Comes Falling, and Phil Holloway, he's also here with us, along with Matt Murphy, who will join me in just a minute.

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Speaker 14 Guys, thanks so much for being here. So we're awaiting the start of this.

Speaker 14 We've been watching the families file in all morning, and you can only imagine what a heavy day this is for the poor family members who now already know what Brian Kohlberger's fate is going to be, but probably feel, Howard, like

Speaker 14 they owe it to their loved ones to be their voice today.

Speaker 15 I mean, they do feel a sense of duty.

Speaker 15 This is their last public chance to share how they're feeling, to tell the world how they feel about even this plea agreement, and they're going to take advantage of it.

Speaker 15 I know I've talked with one of the family members and they put a lot of time and a lot of energy into crafting their statements.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 14 And one of the things, one of the surprises I had this morning, sticking with you on this, Howard, is that Steve Gonsalves is there,

Speaker 14 Kaylee's dad. And he had suggested earlier on he was not going to go.
And I don't know whether he's planning on speaking. I think that

Speaker 14 his other daughter is going to speak, but he did show up today, and he's sort of, in a way, been the most visible family member on this thing from the start.

Speaker 15 Well, I know his family contacted me about a week ago, and we've had some disagreements over the course of this whole thing.

Speaker 15 But now they just want to focus on the facts, and they're trying to find out, and this is extremely poignant. is that they're asking how many times was Kayleigh stabbed? They want to know that.

Speaker 15 They have a number 54, and they want to say something that's accurate, and they can't get any information from the coroner.

Speaker 15 And that's the sort of the predicament they're in, and that's what this settlement

Speaker 15 deal will keep them in this predicament. They won't get the answers they will need, not even to basic questions.
What has to, how many times was my daughter stabbed?

Speaker 14 How can they not know that?

Speaker 14 Why is that not released from the coroner?

Speaker 15 The coroner will not tell them that. They're calling me to try to find that out.
That's how desperate they are.

Speaker 15 And your heart goes out to them. I mean, at one point, Steve Gonzalves said early on, you send your daughter off to college and she comes back to you in a box.

Speaker 15 How do you live with this?

Speaker 14 This poor man, Phil, he and the other family member, we understand Ethan Chapin's parents will not be there. They don't see any point.

Speaker 14 The mother is like the most pulled together person you've ever seen in the wake of a tragedy.

Speaker 14 I was watching her on this this new documentary that just hit Amazon Prime on the Idaho 4, and she's very, I mean, she's remarkably composed.

Speaker 14 My hat goes off to her, but she was basically saying, We don't see the point. I think the rest of the family members will be there and will speak.
And just

Speaker 14 what a huge responsibility they must feel, right? Because it's like the victims can't speak, and this prosecutor has failed to speak for them.

Speaker 17 You know, Megan, I've been very

Speaker 18 critical of how,

Speaker 17 not necessarily how the prosecution has handled their case presentation or how they've handled court, but I've been critical and I remain critical

Speaker 17 as to how they have dealt with these families. You know, the issue of how many times someone was stabbed, I mean, that should have been information provided.
to the family long ago.

Speaker 17 They should not have to be begging the coroner to get it right now, here, right on the eve of sentencing. The prosecution should have shared as much as they possibly could with them.

Speaker 17 Um, previously, and certainly now that the gag order has been lifted, the family should not be treated this way. And in fact, um, I am of the belief that we should not have had this plea deal to take

Speaker 11 the table.

Speaker 14 They're starting, so we don't want to miss that. Let's dip in.
Yep.

Speaker 13 Mr. Hurwitz, Mr.
Nye, and Ms. Allen.

Speaker 13 This is the time set for sentencing in this case.

Speaker 13 The defendant previously entered a plea of guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

Speaker 13 In exchange, the party stipulated to recommend a sentence consisting of on burglary 10 years fixed, on each of the four counts, first-degree murder, life

Speaker 20 fixed.

Speaker 13 The parties waived a pre-sentence investigation.

Speaker 13 To my understanding, neither party submitted a sentencing memorandum or other materials for the court. Court is familiar with the file and the evidence submitted previously

Speaker 13 by the parties as it has reviewed them throughout the case and in anticipation of trial. Is there any legal cause why

Speaker 13 sentence should not be imposed at this time?

Speaker 22 No, Your Honor.

Speaker 13 Does the state

Speaker 13 before

Speaker 13 impact statements and arguments wish to present evidence today?

Speaker 22 Your Honor, the state does not intend to present evidence in a documentary sense.

Speaker 22 We have provided the court through the clerk with photographs that we would like to use during the course of our sentencing argument. Sure.

Speaker 21 All right. Thank you.

Speaker 13 But no testimony other than impact statements.

Speaker 22 That's correct, Your Honor.

Speaker 13 All right. So, with that, let's start with impact statements.

Speaker 22 Ms. Jennings will be introducing

Speaker 13 in my understanding, just so I'm clear, I had indicated through the trial court administrator that we needed to see

Speaker 5 if

Speaker 13 any of the victims wish to have the camera not running

Speaker 13 an audio only. And my understanding is all of them indicated they are fine with the video.
Is that correct?

Speaker 13 Yes, Your Honor, that's correct. Very well.

Speaker 6 Go ahead, students.

Speaker 25 Your Honor, the first, and we're taking these in the order, victim impact statements in the order that the charges were listed in the indictment.

Speaker 25 The first charge being burglary.

Speaker 26 So we

Speaker 25 will have Bethany Funka's statement and she has asked that her friend Emily Alante read that statement.

Speaker 13 All right. Any objection to that?

Speaker 19 No objection. All right, very well.

Speaker 12 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 12 I'll be speaking on behalf of Bethany, and so, yeah, here it reads.

Speaker 12 My name is Bethany Fonk and I was roommates with Maddie, Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan. I not only lost some of my best friends, but I also lost a sister.

Speaker 12 Never in a million years would I have

Speaker 12 would I have thought that something like this would have happened to my closest friends. I thought that we were going to wake up and go upstairs, see them and tell them how they had scared us and that

Speaker 12 they were going to tease us about how we are constantly scaredy cats.

Speaker 12 I make jokes about it as we would go to Taco Bell like always. But sadly, that is not what happened and what turned out to be my worst nightmare.

Speaker 12 When I first woke up that morning, I had no idea what happened. I woke up around seven with a terrible toothache, so I called my dad, who is a dentist.

Speaker 12 And he asked what I should do.

Speaker 12 He told me to take Advil, so I did, and I went back to sleep. I was still out of it and still didn't know what happened.
If I had known, I of course would have called 911 right away.

Speaker 12 I still carry so much regret and guilt for not knowing what had happened and not calling right away, even though I understand it wouldn't have changed anything, not even if the paramedics had been right outside the door.

Speaker 12 I was so frantic that morning and scared to death, not knowing what had happened.

Speaker 12 And when I made the 911 call, I couldn't even get out the words.

Speaker 12 And from then on, I don't remember a thing. It was like my brain wiped that whole memory.

Speaker 12 That was the worst day of my life.

Speaker 5 And I know it always will be.

Speaker 12 While I was still in shock, trying to process the fact that my friends were truly gone, I had been attacked by the public. I was grieving, numb, and unsure of what had happened was even real.

Speaker 12 And at the same time,

Speaker 12 I was getting flooded with death threats and hateful messages from people who did not know me at all or know the dynamic of our friendship.

Speaker 12 Social media made it so much worse, and strangers made up stories to entertain themselves. The media harassed not just me, but also my family.
People showed up at our house.

Speaker 12 They called my phone, my parents' phones, other family members' phones, and we were chased while I was still trying to survive emotionally and grieve the loss of my friends.

Speaker 12 I hated and still hate that they are gone, but for some reason, I am still here and I got to live. I still think about this every day.
Why me?

Speaker 26 Why did I get to live?

Speaker 12 and not them.

Speaker 12 For the longest time, I could not even look at their families without feeling sick with guilt.

Speaker 12 I did not know what to say or what to do. I was terrified that my presence just made their pain worse.

Speaker 12 And I was still here when their kid, their siblings, and their friends, their loved ones should have been here instead.

Speaker 12 After everything happened, I was afraid to go into my own backyard or alone in my house. I was scared that the person who did this would come for me next.

Speaker 12 I was always scared that the media would try to catch me at any moment of any day,

Speaker 12 even when I was just walking around my house. I made my parents close all the blinds during the day so no one could see me even in the slightest chance.

Speaker 12 I barely left the house, and when I did, I made sure I was never alone.

Speaker 12 I slept in my parents' room for almost a year. I made them double lock every door, set an alarm.

Speaker 12 and still check everywhere in the room just in case someone was hiding. And I still check my room every night before and I double lock it.

Speaker 12 I have not slept through a single night since this happened. I constantly wake up in panics terrified.

Speaker 12 Someone is breaking in or someone is here to hurt me or I'm about to lose someone else that I love.

Speaker 12 The fear never really leaves.

Speaker 12 For a long time I could barely get out of bed. But one day I realized I have to live for them.

Speaker 12 They did not get the chance to keep living, but I do and and I will not take that for granted. So now every day I remind myself to live for them and everything I do,

Speaker 12 I do it with them in mind. I am still scared to go out in public, but I force myself to do things because I know that they would want me to keep living my life to the fullest.

Speaker 12 I am beyond blessed to still be here, and I refuse to take that for granted when they did not get a chance.

Speaker 12 Our house was not just a house, it was a home. It was where we laughed till we couldn't breathe, make meals, did crafts, binge, watch reality shows, played games, and spent lazy days on the couch.

Speaker 12 It was movie nights, wine nights, morning debriefs, pranks, hot chocolate, cookies, and warmth.

Speaker 12 I would cherish those memories forever, and I will not let what happened erase how special our home was or how much those memories meant to me.

Speaker 12 Now I would like to share some bits and pieces of who they were

Speaker 12 as people and some of the memories that we shared. One of my favorite memories was Halloween, and we all went to Sigma Chi.

Speaker 12 But instead of partying, we just sat in an apartment talking and laughing all night long.

Speaker 12 I do not think I've ever laughed that hard in my life.

Speaker 12 We did not care about the party. We were just happy to be with each other.
Xana was one in a million.

Speaker 12 She was the life of the party.

Speaker 12 But she was also the kindest and funniest person I knew.

Speaker 12 Everyone loved her because she made everyone feel so loved.

Speaker 12 She was just someone you always wanted to be around no matter the circumstance.

Speaker 12 One of my favorite days with Xana was when she laid on the couch. When we laid on the couch together all day, watching movies and stacking.

Speaker 12 And when she, Maddie, and I would go and get Margarita's chips and salsa, she would also light up a room with her presence alone.

Speaker 5 Kaylee had the most beautiful radiant smile and she was so kind, but also one of the funniest people I've ever known.

Speaker 19 She loved playing little pranks

Speaker 12 and she always had us laughing so hard that we could not breathe. She was so full of energy and life.

Speaker 12 I really believed that she could have ruled the world if she wanted to and she would have been America's sweetheart.

Speaker 12 Ethan was the sweetest, most genuine guy.

Speaker 12 He was always smiling and always making other people smile too.

Speaker 12 Ethan was the kind of person you wanted around.

Speaker 12 He was so kind and easy to talk to, and just so fun.

Speaker 12 And the way he cared for Xana was truly something to admire.

Speaker 12 And really was proof that storybook love and true romances really do exist.

Speaker 12 I was not only, it was not only obvious to me, but everyone that was around Ethan and Tana that they were absolute soulmates.

Speaker 12 Maddie was not only one of my best friends, but she was the older sister I would have always wanted.

Speaker 12 There was no one I looked up to

Speaker 12 or admired more than Maddie.

Speaker 12 She was truly a ray of sunshine, and everyone was drawn to her. She was so kind, loving, funny, fun, and passionate.

Speaker 12 She had the sweetest soul and wanted nothing but the best for everyone

Speaker 12 and to love and show love to everyone. She took me under her wing and always made me feel so safe and included and above all, loved and valued.

Speaker 12 She never failed to make me laugh or put a smile in my face.

Speaker 12 Still to this day, I am beyond grateful that she chose me to be her sorority little, and I thank God every day that I not only got to know her, but had her as one of my best friends.

Speaker 12 Honestly, I cannot pinpoint one favorite memory with Maddie because I have so many and this would be a very long read if I did.

Speaker 12 But if some little memories with her that I cherish is when the two of us made a nice dinner and split some wine or when we would binge-watch Jersey Shore or Summer House.

Speaker 12 When we came up with a whole dance routine on Halloween and danced and sang all night like no one was watching.

Speaker 31 All the late-night walks home from going out.

Speaker 12 and just little shopping trips and so much more.

Speaker 12 I am beyond blessed that I had the chance to know each and every one of them. They changed my life in ways I would have never put into words.

Speaker 12 I hope that they are remembered for who they are, not what happened to them, because who they are were so beautiful, and they deserve to be remembered in the highest way.

Speaker 12 My heart breaks every time I go to text one of them, or how badly I wish I could see and hang out with them. And then I remember I cannot.

Speaker 12 I will never be able to again.

Speaker 12 But I still talk to them in my prayers every single night, and I always will.

Speaker 12 I wish more than anything I could hug them one last time.

Speaker 12 And I wish I could tell them how much I love them.

Speaker 12 And even though I cannot, I still tell them every night I will keep living for them as long as I am lucky enough to still be here.

Speaker 12 And they were all truly one of a kind, and they will be in our hearts forever and always.

Speaker 22 Thank you.

Speaker 13 And please convey to

Speaker 13 Bethany my appreciation for her courage, and I hope that she heals.

Speaker 25 Next is Dylan Mortensen. We're asking for some accommodations for Miss Mortensen and that she be allowed to sit in my seat.

Speaker 6 Sure.

Speaker 13 Dylan, just take your time, all right?

Speaker 13 Sorry,

Speaker 28 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 30 What happened that night changed everything

Speaker 30 because of him,

Speaker 30 four beautiful,

Speaker 32 genuine,

Speaker 30 compassionate people

Speaker 30 were taken from this world for no reason.

Speaker 30 He didn't just take their lives. He took the light they carried into every room.

Speaker 30 He took away how they made everyone feel safe, loved, and full of joy.

Speaker 30 He took away the ability for me to tell them that I love them and that I'm so proud of them.

Speaker 30 He took away who they were becoming and the futures they were were going to have.

Speaker 30 He took away birthdays, graduations,

Speaker 30 celebrations,

Speaker 30 and all the memories that we were supposed to make. All of it is gone.

Speaker 30 And all the people who loved them are just left to carry that weight forever.

Speaker 30 He didn't just take them from the world. He took them from me.

Speaker 30 My friends.

Speaker 30 My people who felt like my home.

Speaker 30 The people I looked up to and adored more than anyone.

Speaker 30 He took away my ability to trust the world around me.

Speaker 30 What he did shattered me in places I didn't know could break. I was barely 19 when he did this.
We had just celebrated my birthday at the end of September.

Speaker 30 I should have been figuring out who I was. I should have been having the college experience and starting to establish my future.

Speaker 30 Instead,

Speaker 30 I was forced to learn how to survive the unimaginable.

Speaker 30 I couldn't be alone.

Speaker 30 I had to sleep in my mom's bed because I was too terrified to close my eyes. Terrified that if I blinked, someone might be there.

Speaker 30 I made escape plans everywhere I went. If something happens, how do I get out?

Speaker 30 What can I use to defend myself?

Speaker 33 Who can help?

Speaker 30 Then there are the panic attacks. The kind that slam into me like a tsunami out of nowhere.
I can't breathe.

Speaker 32 I can't think.

Speaker 30 I can't stop shaking.

Speaker 30 All I can do is scream. Because the emotional pain and the grief is too much to handle.
And my chest feels like it's caving in.

Speaker 30 Sometimes I drop to the floor with my heart racing,

Speaker 30 convinced something is very wrong.

Speaker 30 It's far beyond anxiety. It's my body reliving everything over and over again.

Speaker 30 My nervous system never got the message that it is over, and it won't let me forget what he did to them.

Speaker 30 People call me strong.

Speaker 30 They say I'm a survivor, They don't see what my new reality looks like. They don't see the panic attacks, the hypervigilance, the exhaustion,

Speaker 30 the way I scan every room I enter,

Speaker 30 the way I flinch at sudden sounds.

Speaker 30 They don't know how heavy it is to carry so much pain and still be expected to keep going, and that's because of him.

Speaker 30 He still bores at me I may never get back.

Speaker 30 He took the version of me who didn't constantly ask. What if it happens again?

Speaker 30 What if next time I don't survive?

Speaker 30 He may have shattered parts of me,

Speaker 30 but I'm still putting myself back together.

Speaker 30 Piece by piece, I'm learning how to live in this new version of life. It is not easy.
It hurts, but I'm still trying.

Speaker 30 Still trying. And I'm not trying just for me.
I'm trying for them, my friends.

Speaker 30 About a year ago, I had a dream about them. I got to say goodbye.
I told them I won't be able to see you again, so I need to tell you goodbye.

Speaker 30 They all kept asking why, and all I could say was, I can't tell you, but I have to.

Speaker 30 When I woke up, I felt shattered and heartbroken, but also strangely grateful. Like maybe in some way that dream gave us the goodbye we never got.

Speaker 30 Still no dream can replace them, and no goodbye will ever feel finished.

Speaker 30 He is a hollow vessel, something less than human.

Speaker 30 A body without empathy, without remorse.

Speaker 30 He chose destruction.

Speaker 33 He chose evil.

Speaker 30 He feels nothing.

Speaker 30 He tried to take everything from me. My friends, my safety, my identity, my future.

Speaker 30 He took their lives, but I will continue trying to be like them to make them proud.

Speaker 30 Living is how I honor them. Speaking today is to help me find some sort of justice for them.

Speaker 30 And I will never let him take that from me. He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice.

Speaker 30 He will never take the memories I had with him.

Speaker 30 He will never erase the love we shared, the laughs we had, or the way they made me feel seen and whole. Those things are mine.
They are sacred, and he will never touch them.

Speaker 30 I get to feel sadness. I get to feel rage.
I get to feel joy even when it's hard.

Speaker 30 I get to feel love even when it hurts. I get to live.

Speaker 30 And while I will still live with this pain, at least I get to live my life. He will stay here, empty, forgotten, and powerless.

Speaker 13 Jill, thank you so much for your courage.

Speaker 14 I appreciate it.

Speaker 25 Next, we have members from the Madison Mogan family.

Speaker 25 First would be Scott Laramie, Madison Mogan's stepfather.

Speaker 25 Standing by home is Karen Laramie, Madison's mother.

Speaker 21 thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 36 My name is Scott Laramie.

Speaker 36 I'm Maddie Mogan's stepfather and the husband of Maddie's mother, Karen Laramie.

Speaker 36 I will read this victim impact statement on behalf of Karen and myself.

Speaker 2 Maddie was our gift of life, our purpose, and our hope.

Speaker 36 Maddie quickly became Karen's joy, identity, and purpose in life.

Speaker 36 My joy in

Speaker 36 Maddie's life when she was two and a half years old, experience transformed me into a life of joy, love, and family.

Speaker 31 Maddie was bright, beautiful, kind,

Speaker 29 empathic.

Speaker 36 She listened carefully to others and was observant.

Speaker 36 seeing and caring about the hearts and the minds of all she encountered.

Speaker 36 She loved music and music festivals.

Speaker 36 She had a wonderful sense of humor.

Speaker 13 She excelled in school.

Speaker 36 She was an easy child, easy child to raise, almost never requiring discipline and almost always giving us

Speaker 1 parental joy.

Speaker 36 One time Karen remembers disciplining Maddie as a little girl. Maddie responded, you broke my heart,

Speaker 36 which of course melted ours.

Speaker 38 She had a keen wit, even at that young age.

Speaker 36 As she

Speaker 11 transitioned

Speaker 36 into teenage years,

Speaker 36 she prioritized us and extended family over many of the distractions that capture teenagers.

Speaker 36 She showered us with her presence and love at family events, barbecues, picnics, birthdays, holidays, and others.

Speaker 36 She spent countless hours with her papa,

Speaker 36 her Uncle David, and Adine,

Speaker 36 and her other close family and friends.

Speaker 36 This world was a better place with her in it.

Speaker 39 As she reached

Speaker 36 adulthood, Maddie applied her studies to be a marketing professional, entering into an internship at Payne West, and started planning her professional future.

Speaker 36 As with all things,

Speaker 36 she involved Karen and myself in the joy of her journey.

Speaker 36 As she transitioned into womanhood, Karen and I continued to be astounded at this wonderful and accomplished person we had created.

Speaker 36 All parents dream of their children accomplishing more than them.

Speaker 36 We realized this dream. All we had not become, she was becoming.

Speaker 36 Karen and I are ordinary people, but we lived extraordinary lives because we had Maddie.

Speaker 36 Maddie was taken senselessly and brutally in a sudden act of evil.

Speaker 36 She was taken along

Speaker 31 with the young, promising, and bright lives of Kayleigh, Zana, and Ethan.

Speaker 36 First we felt disbelief.

Speaker 36 Next we felt disorientation.

Speaker 36 Then we felt grief overcome us.

Speaker 36 Our grief is compounded even more for the Goncalves, Cornodo, and Chapin families.

Speaker 36 We speak of hope and healing,

Speaker 38 and we do have hope and some healing.

Speaker 36 But the vast emotional wound will never fully heal.

Speaker 36 Since Maddie's loss, there's emptiness in our hearts, home, and family, an endless void.

Speaker 36 After losing her mother in the car crash,

Speaker 36 Karen took to grieve.

Speaker 36 Karen took years to grieve and recover.

Speaker 36 The feeling that her life with Maddie and A

Speaker 36 was perfect helped her to start to heal.

Speaker 36 Now, this is no longer perfect.

Speaker 36 After Maddie's loss, Karen felt like she was spinning out,

Speaker 36 emotionally collapsing

Speaker 41 into anxiety and depression.

Speaker 36 She sometimes asks,

Speaker 36 how am I supposed to go on when I've lost my favorite person in the world?

Speaker 36 I felt the same,

Speaker 36 and we continue to struggle.

Speaker 36 The loss of Maddie has impacted so many beyond our family.

Speaker 36 Her second family is her sorority sisters who

Speaker 36 grieve alongside us.

Speaker 36 She has so many close friends who suffer from her loss.

Speaker 36 We will continue to be

Speaker 36 Her loss will continue to be felt by the Bandle community,

Speaker 36 including Bandle Solutions on campus, where she volunteered her time for others.

Speaker 36 It helps us to know Maddie is in heaven now,

Speaker 36 freed from the trials of this earth.

Speaker 36 We, however, continue to live on without the grace and support of her presence.

Speaker 36 We will grow old without our only child,

Speaker 31 our bright, beautiful friend and daughter.

Speaker 36 In the end, there are no words that can accurately capture the devastation of losing Maddie.

Speaker 36 We will endure

Speaker 6 and we will go on.

Speaker 36 For Maddie, we will not let our grief consume us.

Speaker 36 For Maddie, we will continue to love and care for our family and friends, including the families of Kaylee, Santa, and Ethan.

Speaker 38 We will remain united with them.

Speaker 36 We can only hope that others out there suffering similar losses can look to us and see that we can overcome hatred, darkness, and evil.

Speaker 36 We know the law allows us to comment on the defendant and his sentence.

Speaker 36 As for his sentence, we support the plea agreement.

Speaker 36 Society needs to be protected against this evil.

Speaker 36 As for the defendant,

Speaker 36 we will not waste the words.

Speaker 4 Nor will we fall into hatred and bitterness.

Speaker 36 Evil has many faces, and we now know this, but evil does not deserve our time and attention.

Speaker 36 We are done being victims.

Speaker 31 We are taking back our lives.

Speaker 36 We will turn our time, talents, and attention to hope, healing, and helping others and to the future.

Speaker 36 We invite all those who have suffered with us on this on this to join us in our journey.

Speaker 36 We can make this world a better place.

Speaker 36 We can move on from tragedy.

Speaker 36 Adversity will visit us.

Speaker 31 Evil will visit us, but we will overcome.

Speaker 36 We can and will endure.

Speaker 36 Karen and I express our gratitude to Your Honor and to the prosecution team

Speaker 36 for allowing us the opportunity to make this statement.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 13 Thank you so much for your courage, and I am so sorry for your loss.

Speaker 6 God bless you, Your Honor.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'll give you a remote.

Speaker 25 Your Honor, this is Leander James. He's the attorney for the Mogan family and victim advocate.
He'll be reading a statement for Karen Laramie.

Speaker 13 May it please the court counsel.

Speaker 40 My name is Leander James. I am the

Speaker 40 pro bono counsel for Karen and Scott Laramie.

Speaker 40 Karen has asked me to read the statement into the record.

Speaker 40 I thank my husband, Scott,

Speaker 40 for his statement, his courage, and his unending love and support during this dark time.

Speaker 40 While words are inadequate to capture the impact of this horrific crime on our family, he expressed it as best anyone could.

Speaker 40 For Maddie's sake, I will add my supplement statement that incorporates additional impact in the context of my extended family.

Speaker 40 I am grateful to Maddie's great uncle, Brian Caulfield, for assisting me with the difficult, difficult task of putting our pain into words.

Speaker 40 For me and my extended family, Maddie was our hope and our light.

Speaker 40 Her beauty, both outside and in shone its light upon everyone with whom she came in contact.

Speaker 6 Her beauty both,

Speaker 40 pardon me, she carried that hope and light into the future for our entire family. We have memories of our Maddie and grief and pain at her being taken from our presence.

Speaker 40 Any one of us would have given our own light to to have been outshone by hers.

Speaker 40 We now look to our Creator to know that her light continues where we look to see her in his presence.

Speaker 40 Those who commit evil for their own twisted gains and purposes truly defile the efforts and sacrifices of mothers, fathers, families, teachers, clergy, public servants, service members, and all those who commit themselves to the greater good, freedoms, and the future light of our nation.

Speaker 40 Condemnation falls heavily upon those who squandered the lives of our future hopes and dreams.

Speaker 40 Some may offer forgiveness for what the defendant has done. However, we cannot at this time, or perhaps ever.

Speaker 40 Nor will we ask for mercy for what he has done. His acts are too heinous.

Speaker 40 The agony and grief he has caused too great.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 40 we will waste no further words or thoughts on him.

Speaker 40 For Maddie's sake, we will move on.

Speaker 40 We will do our best to carry Maddie's light into this world and make it a better place.

Speaker 4 I thank the court and the prosecution.

Speaker 40 prosecution for allowing me the opportunity to make my statement.

Speaker 20 And I thank all those

Speaker 40 who have and will support my family and the families of Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan. Thank you.

Speaker 13 Thank you. Thank you, Mrs.
Slarmi.

Speaker 22 Appreciate it.

Speaker 25 Next is Ben Mogan, the father of Maddie Mogan.

Speaker 25 Yes, of course. Actually, Your Honor, it'll be Kim Cheely, the grandmother of Maddie Mogan.

Speaker 26 My name is Kim Chealy. I was Maddie Mogan's paternal grandmother.
as Ben Mogan, her father, is my son.

Speaker 26 I'm here today today with my sister, Lori Cheely, Maddie's great-aunt, and my son, Ben Mogan, and my daughter-in-law, Corey Hatrock.

Speaker 26 I'd like to begin by thanking a number of people involved in bringing this case to closure.

Speaker 26 In my daughter's words, the plea deal the prosecution team reached this month is one that punishes the perpetrator of this horrendous crime, protects the public from further harm, and allows all of us who knew and loved these kids the time to grieve without the anxiety of the long and gruesome trial, the years of appeals, and potential for mistrials along the way.

Speaker 26 My family and I are so grateful to Bill Thompson and his prosecution team for their dedication and painstaking work that forced the perpetrator to admit his guilt.

Speaker 26 We want to thank the Idaho State Police, the Moscow Police Department, the FBI, and Judge Hipler.

Speaker 26 We'd also like to thank the University of Idaho officials who have treated the families of the victims with such dignity and kindness and who have honored the four victims beautifully.

Speaker 26 Maddie was my first grandchild, so when she was born, All her grandparents had the distinct pleasure of deciding what we'd like to be called.

Speaker 26 I chose Nana, pretty original. But when Maddie was about a year and a half old, her papa, Ben's dad, and I were planning to visit the new little family in Oregon.

Speaker 26 Maddie didn't have an extensive vocabulary at the time, but for some unknown reason, she called bananas ba-deedledles.

Speaker 26 When Karen and Ben told her Nana was coming to visit, she figured I say Deedle Deedle for that word. So I became Deedlededle, shortened to Deedle, when she was about six or seven.

Speaker 26 And I was Deedle all her life.

Speaker 26 I don't think her stepdad, Scotty, ever knew my given name was Kim.

Speaker 26 Maddie's and my birthdays were one day apart, and a couple years before she was killed, she gave me this necklace with Deedle and Maddie engraved on it.

Speaker 26 And I added an angel wing, and it's one of my treasured possessions.

Speaker 26 I also got an angel wing tattoo, never thought I'd see the day, but along with many members of our family, replicating the one that Maddie and her sorority sisters had, I wanted mine where I could see and touch it often.

Speaker 26 From preschool through grade school, I stopped teaching piano lessons early on Wednesdays and picked Maddie up for bubble bats, brownies, and books. It was our special time together.

Speaker 26 And she went home those nights in her jammies with a pan of warm brownies for her family.

Speaker 26 Although Karen and Scotty raised Maddie and did such a lovely job of parenting, we Mogans were lucky to have her for holidays and many other family gatherings.

Speaker 26 We'll always have our treasured memories of Maddie growing up in our big, extended, cooperative family.

Speaker 26 And I thank Karen and Scotty Laramie for being so generous and open and sharing Maddie with Hermogan side of the family.

Speaker 26 When the four kids were murdered,

Speaker 26 The foundation fell out of our world.

Speaker 26 Initially, the fear was truly debilitating.

Speaker 26 The first six weeks were excruciating,

Speaker 26 despite the vigils, memorials, candlelight gatherings of students, friends, family, community members.

Speaker 26 After the arrest, in the past two and a half years, my family has lived with grief, with the effects of traumatic grief, of which I was blissfully unaware before all of this.

Speaker 26 I now now have a stack of books on grief. I've attended grief classes at hospice.

Speaker 26 I've tried EMDR, a technique that helps replace disturbing visions with something more comforting.

Speaker 26 My son Ben, his two sisters, Maddie's aunts, and I, have all experienced depression and anxiety and sleep disturbance requiring medical intervention at times.

Speaker 26 We've all all sought counseling off and on.

Speaker 26 The struggle with media attention was extremely difficult, especially for Ben.

Speaker 26 No one should live through the violent murder of one's child. Some days it's beyond me how the parents of these kids are still upright.

Speaker 26 I'm thankful for the strong families and communities that are supporting the survivors.

Speaker 26 At the time,

Speaker 26 I could think of only two blessings surrounding the horrific murders.

Speaker 26 One was that Ben was living with my partner Tom and me at the time, and that we could support each other emotionally through it all.

Speaker 26 Sadly, Tom died a year ago of a rare brain cancer, and he won't be here to see justice served.

Speaker 26 He was our family's rock, and we all miss him every day.

Speaker 26 A second blessing is that my mother died of COVID several months before the kids were killed and she didn't have to live through the horror. It was difficult to identify blessings.

Speaker 26 So we've all lost our dear child and a future with her.

Speaker 26 I ache for the loss of the dreams that she and her true love, Jake, held.

Speaker 26 And my heart goes out to Karen and Scotty and your side of Maddie's family. You've had more than your share of loss.

Speaker 26 My heart aches for the kids' roommates and the families of the other victims

Speaker 26 and also the family of the perpetrator.

Speaker 26 Going forward, we Mogans are choosing to put our energy and focus into honoring Maddie's too short life and sweet spirit by celebrating Maddie May Day, which my two daughters established.

Speaker 26 On May 25th each year, Maddie's birthday,

Speaker 26 we encourage folks to do random acts of kindness in Maddie's name.

Speaker 26 In my daughter Katie's words,

Speaker 26 may we all protect our peace in whatever way possible, unite in community, and focus on joy.

Speaker 26 Please do an act in kindness

Speaker 26 in Maddie's honor during this week so a glimmer of Maddie's light may live on.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Thank you, Lynn.

Speaker 13 Appreciate your courage and bless you and your family.

Speaker 16 Thank you.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 45 Benjamin Mogan and

Speaker 8 Maddie's dad

Speaker 34 and

Speaker 21 first, I just

Speaker 6 want to say thanks to all the people that helped bring this all to

Speaker 45 a close.

Speaker 45 I know it's not the resolution that everyone

Speaker 21 wanted, but

Speaker 45 I think that

Speaker 45 everyone worked so hard and we really appreciate all their efforts.

Speaker 2 It was such a hard thing to go through for everybody.

Speaker 45 Maddie was my only

Speaker 6 child that I ever had.

Speaker 6 She's the most, she's the only

Speaker 45 great thing I ever really did, and the only thing I was really ever proud of.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 21 I thought we would have

Speaker 45 the rest of our lives together to

Speaker 6 to be together and and

Speaker 6 know each other and

Speaker 6 and I really I took for granted

Speaker 45 the times you know she was in college and I thought oh well we'll have the rest of our lives to

Speaker 46 to

Speaker 45 do all the stuff that we're supposed to do.

Speaker 45 And she was just about done.

Speaker 29 She actually earned all of her credits for college degree and

Speaker 45 Karen and Scotty and I got to go and get her diploma that she actually earned and she

Speaker 29 deserved every bit of that.

Speaker 34 But I

Speaker 34 I

Speaker 34 thought

Speaker 34 that that

Speaker 45 was going to be just the beginning of a

Speaker 45 long life together and

Speaker 45 we never got that.

Speaker 45 Karen and Scotty did such a great job raising her after

Speaker 45 Karen and I

Speaker 45 split up and I'm so thankful for

Speaker 6 Scotty and

Speaker 45 the role that he played in her life when I wasn't able to.

Speaker 45 But we got to spend a lot of great times together. Maddie and I,

Speaker 45 she was my favorite person to go to a concert with. We got to see some fun shows together.

Speaker 45 And I told her, if there's ever a show that you want to go to, you let me know and I'll get you tickets for you and your friend. Or if

Speaker 5 we want to go together, we'll make it happen.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 45 my favorite memory with her was when the Mac Miller show sold out here in Spokane and all the everyone wanted tickets no one could get them and they on the last day before the show they did a

Speaker 45 uh radio thing and I I got four meet and greet tickets for for Maddie and her friends and me to go and see the show and and that was her favorite artist at the time was Mac Miller and

Speaker 45 And uh and he's gone now too and my my little cousin Zach drove us all there that night. And he's gone too, tragically.
And

Speaker 8 yeah.

Speaker 6 Anyway,

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 45 last thing that she ever wrote to me was this Father's Day card. And

Speaker 39 I'm so glad I still have it.

Speaker 45 I'm just going to read what she said.

Speaker 45 It says, Happy Father's Day.

Speaker 39 I hope you have the best day.

Speaker 45 I can't wait till we can hang out again soon. I'll be in Court d'Alene

Speaker 45 624 to 7.4.

Speaker 45 Hopefully we can find a time then.

Speaker 45 I love your birthday card that you sent me, by the way. Maybe we can see a concert sometime soon.
I'd love to see the gourds when it's not so smoky out. I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 45 I'm proud of how far you've come.

Speaker 45 Thank you for always encouraging me to do my best.

Speaker 2 Love you lots and lots. Love Maddie Mae.

Speaker 45 She did encourage me to

Speaker 45 not just to do my best but to live on.

Speaker 45 I went through a lot of

Speaker 39 issues with addiction and with

Speaker 6 with substance abuse and and

Speaker 45 when I wasn't wanting to live anymore

Speaker 29 she was what would keep me

Speaker 45 from

Speaker 45 just

Speaker 45 not caring anymore. And knowing that she was out there and that she was just such a beautiful person

Speaker 5 kept me alive a lot of a lot of

Speaker 45 rough moments and

Speaker 45 I'm so glad that she was able to meet Jake.

Speaker 5 He was the only one that

Speaker 45 actually ever got to take her to the gorge.

Speaker 45 They went and saw watershed together and

Speaker 45 Yeah, they they had a heck of a time

Speaker 29 I'm glad she got to to. That's a really special place for me.

Speaker 45 And I always wanted, she always wanted to work out there with me in the summer sometime.

Speaker 39 Man, she never got to, but at least she got to see it once with Jake. He was such a great guy.
He is such a great guy.

Speaker 45 And I really wanted to see what a future with them would have looked like.

Speaker 45 I'll I'll never...

Speaker 45 I'll never be able to

Speaker 45 replace her.

Speaker 6 I wrote a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 45 I just don't know what to say right now.

Speaker 45 I just miss her so much and I just love her.

Speaker 45 Weren't anything?

Speaker 5 This shouldn't have happened. And,

Speaker 34 you know,

Speaker 45 death sentence is is one thing, you know, you know, when when it's gonna happen and you know, it's gonna be all gentle and stuff.

Speaker 45 You know, life without parole with a room building full of people that all just want you to

Speaker 45 not be around anymore and winking at every morning, not knowing if that's the day they're gonna pull your card. I mean, that's it's not a very nice sentence either.
So, uh,

Speaker 45 you know, I don't,

Speaker 45 I don't know. I just love you, Maddie, and I wish you were still here.

Speaker 6 Thank you so much.

Speaker 25 Here on our next would be members from the Kaylee Gonsalves family. Um, first will be her father, Steve Gonsalves.

Speaker 42 Today we are here to finish what you started.

Speaker 20 Today

Speaker 5 you've lost control.

Speaker 42 Today we are here to prove to the world that you picked the wrong families.

Speaker 42 The wrong state, the wrong police officers, the wrong community.

Speaker 42 You tried to break our community apart. You tried to plant fear.
You tried to divide us. You failed.

Speaker 42 Instead, your actions have united everyone in their disgust for you.

Speaker 42 I just learned from these lead investigators,

Speaker 42 to their shock,

Speaker 42 they worked in an investigation and actually

Speaker 42 worked with Pennsylvania police officers and the federal FBI. You united everyone.
Everyone was united after you.

Speaker 42 None of us are divided.

Speaker 42 We were united in our disgust

Speaker 42 and our love for these children.

Speaker 42 Today you have no name.

Speaker 42 Because when when this all started, we all came together and we said, let's stop even talking about his name and just use initials.

Speaker 42 So even the media just called you BK.

Speaker 20 That's all you are.

Speaker 42 Looking back when the police officers knocked on my door,

Speaker 42 told me what happened to my child, told me what happened to Maddie Mae,

Speaker 42 I don't think he was even out of the driveway before my kids turned around, looked at me, and said, what do we do, Dad?

Speaker 6 I told them, you get to work.

Speaker 42 You get your ass to work.

Speaker 42 We started calling, we started texting, we started emailing.

Speaker 42 And you know what?

Speaker 42 Within hours, within hours, we had your white car on the camera. We knew, we knew from the very beginning we had you.

Speaker 22 Police officers tell us.

Speaker 14 Welcome, everyone. This is Megan Kelly.
We are in live coverage here of the sentencing hearing for Brian Kohlberger, confessed killer of the Idaho 4, and Steve Gonsalves is speaking now, Father King.

Speaker 13 You're a joke. Complete joke.

Speaker 14 But we took this disaster and we did what we could.

Speaker 42 We put everything online. We took our kids.
We took our images. We took everything that they did, their videos, their photos.

Speaker 42 the girls' pranks,

Speaker 42 Ethan singing. We put it out there.
We shared it with the world,

Speaker 42 and the world united.

Speaker 42 And all they ended up when they talked about this case is they talked about Kaylee Jade, Maddie Mae, Xana, and Ethan.

Speaker 42 Everything that these people meant to us, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister. We shared that with our community.

Speaker 42 Then we shared it with our state. We shared it with the country.
And eventually we shared it with the world.

Speaker 42 The world's watching because of the kids, not because of you.

Speaker 42 Nobody cares about you.

Speaker 42 You're not worth the time, the effort to be remembered.

Speaker 42 In time, you will be nothing but two initials forgotten to the wind. No visitors, nothing more than initials on an otherwise unmarked tombstone.

Speaker 42 From this moment,

Speaker 41 we've all started

Speaker 42 you.

Speaker 42 We want to all leave in closing one last thing. You picked the wrong family, and we're laughing at you on your trip to Japan.

Speaker 13 That will be today or tomorrow.

Speaker 6 I'll close with,

Speaker 42 God bless all the men and women that worked on on this case and all the hard work that you guys did.

Speaker 42 You guys allowed us to grieve and allowed us to get through this. The amount of work that you guys put together and the way that you guys put it together was beautiful.

Speaker 42 There were hard times to be expected, but thank you all and God bless.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 25 Your honor next is Stephen Gonzalez, Kaylee's brother. brother.

Speaker 9 Stephen's actually going to pass. I'm going to go.

Speaker 25 Okay. Olivia Gonzalvez, Kaylee's sister.

Speaker 21 Hello.

Speaker 35 I'd like to start by thanking the court for allowing me the time and opportunity to speak today.

Speaker 35 My name is Olivia, and I'm the big sister of Kaylee Gonzalvez, and I was blessed to love Madison Mogan as a sister, too. I'm not here today to speak in grief.
I'm here to speak in truth.

Speaker 35 Because the truth is, my sister Kaylee and her best friend Maddie were not yours to take.

Speaker 35 They were not yours to study, to stalk, or to silence.

Speaker 9 They were two pieces of a whole, the perfect yin and yang.

Speaker 35 They are everything that you could never be.

Speaker 35 Loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave, and powerful. Because the truth about Kaylee and Maddie is they would have been kind to you.

Speaker 35 If you had approached them in their everyday lives, they would have given you directions, thanked you for the compliment, or awkwardly giggled to make your own words less uncomfortable for you.

Speaker 35 In a world that rejected you, they would have shown mercy.

Speaker 35 Because the truth is, I'm angry.

Speaker 35 Every day I'm angry. I'm left shouting at the inside of my own head everything I wish I could say to you.

Speaker 35 The truth about me is when I heard the news, I didn't cry. I listened for them.
I promised them I would, that I would fight for them, that I would show up no matter what it cost me.

Speaker 35 I swore I'd never let them feel alone. Because you see, I've always been their heavy weight.
I've always been the one to fight the battles they didn't feel ready ready to fight themselves.

Speaker 35 All it ever took was a call and they knew I would handle it for them, no matter the time, no matter the cost. They could wave their white flag because they knew I would never back down, not for them,

Speaker 35 and not even death could change that.

Speaker 35 Somewhere along the line, I started to think about what I would say to them if I was given just one last chance.

Speaker 35 If I could gather enough heartbreak or love or sacrifice or whatever it took to get just one message across, what would I say?

Speaker 35 Throughout this entire process,

Speaker 35 I've written my feelings down at every moment, my wishes, my love, my denial, my anger.

Speaker 35 And as one final act of love, I'd planned to read these thoughts, even jarring and discombobulating and not even making sense.

Speaker 35 Because for me, that was true love.

Speaker 35 As bare and as naked as it could be, not laced in pretty words or dressed for the occasion, but written through bleary eyes at 2 a.m. with clenched fists angry at this reality.

Speaker 35 My true final act of love was to continue on without them for them.

Speaker 35 That dream to read love, to read aloud my love to them.

Speaker 35 to bring meaning through pain

Speaker 35 was the latest blow in realizing

Speaker 35 you don't deserve it. And Kaylee and Maddie don't need it.

Speaker 35 Kaylee and Maddie have always known my love and they would never ask me to prove it by further victimizing myself to a defendant who has shown no guilt, no remorse, no apprehension.

Speaker 35 They would say to me,

Speaker 35 Why would you give the satisfaction of showing vulnerability now? You promised you would never back down.

Speaker 35 And for that clarity, I'm thankful.

Speaker 35 I won't stand here and give you what you want. I won't offer you tears.
I won't offer you trembling. Disappointments like you thrive on pain, on fear, and on the illusion of power.

Speaker 35 And I won't feed your beast.

Speaker 35 Instead, I will call you what you are.

Speaker 35 Sociopath. Psychopath, murderer.

Speaker 35 I will ask the questions that reverberate violently in my own head so loudly that I can't think straight most any day.

Speaker 35 Some of these might be familiar, so sit up straight when I talk to you.

Speaker 35 How was your life right before you murdered my sisters?

Speaker 35 Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your apartment? Please detail what you are thinking and feeling at this time.

Speaker 35 Why did you choose my sisters?

Speaker 35 Before making your move, did you approach my sisters? Do you tell what you were thinking and feeling?

Speaker 35 Before leaving their home, is there anything else you did?

Speaker 35 How does it feel to know the only thing you failed more miserably at than being a murderer is trying to be a rapper?

Speaker 35 Did you recently start shaving or manually pulling out your eyebrows?

Speaker 35 Why November 13th?

Speaker 35 Did you truly think your Amazon purchase was untraceable because you used a gift card?

Speaker 9 How do you find it enjoyable to stargaze with such a severe case of visual snow?

Speaker 35 Where is the murder weapon, the clothes you wore that night?

Speaker 35 What did you bring into the house with you?

Speaker 35 What was the second weapon you used on Kaylee?

Speaker 35 What were Kaylee's last words?

Speaker 35 Please describe in detail the level of anxiety you must have felt when you heard the bear cat pull up to your family home on December 30th, 2022.

Speaker 14 Which do you regret more?

Speaker 35 Returning to the crime scene five hours later or never, ever going back to Moscow, not even once,

Speaker 35 after stalking them there for months.

Speaker 35 If you were really smart, do you think you'd be here right now?

Speaker 35 What's it like needing this much attention just to feel real?

Speaker 35 You're terrified of being ordinary, aren't you?

Speaker 35 Do you feel anything at all?

Speaker 35 Or are you exactly what you always feared? Nothing.

Speaker 35 If you're so powerful, then why are you still hiding, defendant?

Speaker 35 You see, I'm here today as me.

Speaker 33 But who are you?

Speaker 35 Let's try to take off your mask and see.

Speaker 35 You didn't create devastation. You revealed it in yourself.
And that darkness you carry, that emptiness, you'll sit with it long after this is over.

Speaker 5 That is your sentence.

Speaker 35 And it was written on the wall long before you ever pled guilty.

Speaker 35 You didn't win. You just exposed yourself yourself as the coward you are.
You're a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser who thought you were so much smarter than everybody else.

Speaker 35 Constantly scolding, turning your nose up to grammar mistakes, nitpicking and criticizing others. You wanted so badly to be different, to be special, to be better, to be deep, to be mysterious.

Speaker 35 You found yourself thinking you were better than everyone else, and you thought you could figure out the human psyche and see through it, all while tweaked out on heroin.

Speaker 35 Lurking in the shadows made you feel powerful because no one ever paid you any attention in the light. You thought you were exceptional, all because of a grade on a paper.

Speaker 35 You thought you were elite because your online IQ test from 2010 told you so.

Speaker 35 All of that effort just to seem important. It's desperate.

Speaker 35 There is a name for your condition, though. Your inflated ego just didn't allow you to see it.
Wanna be.

Speaker 35 You act like no one could ever understand your mind, but the truth is you're basic.

Speaker 35 You're a textbook case of insecurity disguised as control. Your patterns are predictable.
Your motives are shallow. You are not profound.
You're pathetic.

Speaker 35 You aren't special. or deep, not mysterious or exceptional.
Don't ever get it twisted again.

Speaker 35 No one is scared of you today. No one is intimidated by you.
No one is impressed by you.

Speaker 9 No one thinks that you are important.

Speaker 35 You orchestrated this like you thought you were God. Now look at you, begging a courtroom for scraps.

Speaker 35 You spent months preparing, and still all it took was my sister in a sheath.

Speaker 35 You worked so hard to seem dangerous.

Speaker 35 But real control doesn't have to prove itself.

Speaker 11 The truth is,

Speaker 35 the scariest part about you is how painfully average you turned out to be. The truth is, you're as dumb as they come.

Speaker 11 Stupid, clumsy, slow, sloppy, weak, dirty.

Speaker 35 Let me be very clear.

Speaker 35 Don't ever try to convince yourself you mattered just because someone finally said your name out loud. I see through you.

Speaker 35 You want the truth? Here's the one you'll hate the most.

Speaker 35 If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.

Speaker 35 Thank you.

Speaker 22 Thank you.

Speaker 25 Next is Christy Gonsalves, Kaylee Gonzalves's mother.

Speaker 25 Just relax.

Speaker 7 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 48 I never imagined having to speak to someone so devoid of humanity.

Speaker 48 For a long time, I didn't think I find the words low enough to meet you where you are.

Speaker 48 But now I realize this isn't about you.

Speaker 48 It's about what you've done to me, and I need you to hear it.

Speaker 48 When you murdered my daughter, Kaylee Jay Gonzalves,

Speaker 48 you didn't just take her life. You shattered others.
You attacked what you could never be. And in doing so, you left a trail of devastation far beyond that house.

Speaker 48 You stole my peace.

Speaker 48 You've altered my every waking moment, every sleepless night, the way I view the world, people, safety, trust. It's all been changed by your cruelty.

Speaker 48 I no longer recognize parts of myself. Joy is harder to find.
Laughter feels foreign. The world moves forward, but I'm suspended in a place of sorrow and rage.

Speaker 48 You've taken from me something that can never be restored. The grief sits with me every day, some days quietly and other days so loud it drowns out everything else.

Speaker 48 The emotional toll you've inflicted on me is immeasurable. I live with a constant ache, with birthdays that are now memorials, with holidays that feel hollow,

Speaker 48 with empty chairs that scream louder than words ever could.

Speaker 48 I am forever changed.

Speaker 48 But for you, as a person working on a PhD in criminal justice, You really didn't think this one through.

Speaker 33 You're not that good.

Speaker 48 In fact, you're not that good at anything.

Speaker 48 You couldn't secure a job. You couldn't get along with others.

Speaker 48 You couldn't even get a female to look in your direction.

Speaker 26 All because you are pathetic.

Speaker 48 Now you're a joke in this courtroom.

Speaker 48 I wish I could crown you with a jester hat to complete your orange jumpsuit.

Speaker 7 clown look.

Speaker 48 A dead killer doesn't kill again.

Speaker 48 So while I'm disappointed the firing shot won't get to take their shots at you, I'm confident that the men in prison will have their way with you in more ways than one.

Speaker 48 You will finally get what you wanted-physical touch.

Speaker 48 Just probably not how you were expecting it.

Speaker 48 See, you haven't beat the system.

Speaker 48 You've simply entered a new one where the rules are cruel and the consequences will never end.

Speaker 48 You are entering a place where no one will care who you are and no one will ever respect you. You will be forgotten, discarded, used, and erased.

Speaker 48 You will always be remembered as a loser, an absolute failure. And when those prison doors slam shut behind you, I hope that sound echoes in your heart for the rest of your meaningless days.

Speaker 48 I hope it reminds you of what we all already know. You're nothing.

Speaker 48 May you continue to live your life in misery. You are officially the property of the state of Idaho,

Speaker 48 where your fellow inmates are anxiously awaiting your arrival.

Speaker 14 But it's okay

Speaker 48 because they're there to help you.

Speaker 14 Hell will be waiting.

Speaker 48 Quick message from our youngest daughter.

Speaker 48 Aubrey wanted to say:

Speaker 48 You may have received A's in high school and college, but you're going to be getting big D's in prison.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 13 Do we have more from the Gonzalvez family? Or are you?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 25 Next would be Shannon Gray, the Gonzalvez family attorney. He'll be reading statements from Kaylee Gonzalvez's grandmothers.

Speaker 47 Morning, Your Honor. Shannon Gray, the attorney for the Gonzavez family, I actually have three statements, one from her aunt and two from her grandparents.

Speaker 47 This is from her aunt, Tammy Butts.

Speaker 47 You and the Cloak of Darkness made a decision to turn our whole family's world upside down forever. You and the Cloak of Darkness took our Kayleigh J.
Gonzavez away from us all without hesitation.

Speaker 47 Never have you shown any remorse or regret. We just get creepy,

Speaker 41 non-expressive stares as you have your team of women defend you.

Speaker 47 Haley was a strong, kind, fun, loving, caring person, and she will greatly be missed by all her family and friends for the rest of our lives.

Speaker 47 She had goals in life that you took from her and us.

Speaker 2 We lose.

Speaker 47 on watching her enjoying her life, working hard and building the future she wanted. She was ready to start that after-college life.

Speaker 47 You and the Cloak of Darkness took it all away.

Speaker 47 You left us without her future wedding, her future children that she would have added to our family. No more talking to her on the phone, going for a coffee, celebrating holidays, it's all gone.

Speaker 47 You and the Cloak of Darkness gave each and every one of Kaylee's family members their own lifetime sentence.

Speaker 47 You and the cloak of darkness also took our Maddie Mae from all of us. She was so genuine, caring, polite.
She was part of our family.

Speaker 3 You came in, harmed our children that were younger women than you in their own beds.

Speaker 6 You're nothing.

Speaker 24 You're a coward.

Speaker 41 It's not right that you have received life.

Speaker 47 I pray that you meet your end in the cloak of darkness.

Speaker 22 Burn in hell.

Speaker 47 I have two other statements, Your Honor.

Speaker 47 This is Linda Lucins' statement.

Speaker 3 This is Kaylee's grandmother.

Speaker 47 I really don't know how to address something so inhumane, but I will try.

Speaker 47 Nothing in the past two and a half years has made any sense.

Speaker 47 All I get is you cowardly went into a home at night filled with what I'm sure you thought was all sleeping girls and went on a vicious killing spree for no other reason but to appease your demonic urges.

Speaker 41 You took my granddaughter Kaylee from us plus three other beautiful lives.

Speaker 47 You took my granddaughter Kaylee, beautiful, sweet-souled, sweet-souled, doll-faced Kaylee, who was getting ready to start her amazing life, who had such a bright future,

Speaker 47 who was loved by so many, who you were so envious of, she had a life you could never have.

Speaker 47 You are so beyond human. You're definitely a demon from hell.

Speaker 47 I truly wish your punishment would be the same death you inflicted on our kids. But I think you will meet some new friends in prison who will be there just to help you.
Thumbs up.

Speaker 47 And I have one last statement, Your Honor.

Speaker 47 This is from Cheryl Gonzavez, Kaylee's other grandmother.

Speaker 47 John 1.5 says, Light shines in the darkness,

Speaker 47 and the darkness overcomes it not.

Speaker 47 Somewhere in your life, something, some jealousy, envy, ego, something went dark. It pushed out all light until you became dark and evil.

Speaker 47 And when you saw my granddaughter and her friends, their light, because they have such a light, you couldn't stand it.

Speaker 41 Because the darkness in you could not stand the light in them.

Speaker 47 And so you decided to destroy it.

Speaker 47 Cowardly, you walked into their rooms in the dark and took their lives, hoping to get rid of your darkness.

Speaker 38 But you didn't.

Speaker 40 You failed.

Speaker 47 Because you know what was once a light shown only to their friends, families, and loved ones is now all over the world.

Speaker 41 Everyone sees it.

Speaker 47 Their smile, their beauty, their plans, everything they were and had.

Speaker 47 And you think you put a close to it, even that, but you didn't.

Speaker 31 Because they still exist.

Speaker 13 They are still light. They are still beautiful.

Speaker 47 You can never take that away. They will always be in the light of all eternity.

Speaker 47 And you will be in the darkness because you could not overcome it.

Speaker 44 You failed.

Speaker 47 I want you to be gone, more than gone. I want you to be cast out.

Speaker 47 Cast out from my life, from my family, from this earth. I will not allow your hatred to penetrate into my own soul.
You did not get that power. You are evil, and in the end, evil is eradicated.

Speaker 41 You didn't take Kaylee's light, you spread it into the world.

Speaker 22 Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you.

Speaker 13 All right.

Speaker 13 Are you moving to a different family now?

Speaker 13 Why don't we take a 10-minute recess, all right?

Speaker 14 Extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary. Good God, what just happened that we watched together Kayleigh Gonsalves' sister, Olivia,

Speaker 14 with the most powerful victim impact statement I've ever heard, completely flipping the whole narrative, refusing to talk about her pain or to read as she described it from the journal she's been keeping

Speaker 14 as she's gone through all of the emotions following her sister's murder, something she considered doing, and instead

Speaker 14 going on offense,

Speaker 14 diminishing him, mocking him, laughing at him. Literally, there was a laugh at one point, and she called him pathetic, a loser, and said in that moment that

Speaker 14 we're all still reeling from.

Speaker 14 Hold on, I want to get it because I wrote it down exactly.

Speaker 14 If you hadn't attacked them in the middle of the night while they were asleep, like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.

Speaker 14 That was the position she came from, Olivia Gonsalves, from a position of strength as the big sister who always protected her younger sisters, as she called both Kaylee and her best friend, Maddie Mogan.

Speaker 11 Wow.

Speaker 14 That was something to watch.

Speaker 14 Steve Gonsalves, who originally had said he wasn't going to speak at all at this thing, got up, turned the lectern to face Brian Kohlberger, to stare him down and to have his say in the same defiant tone,

Speaker 14 with the same righteous anger, he addressed him. Both of the Gonvases there and the mother too, refusing to sound like they'd been victimized, saying, Today you've lost control.

Speaker 14 You picked the wrong families, the wrong state, the wrong police.

Speaker 14 He said,

Speaker 14 Your actions have united everyone in their disgust for you. None of us are divided.
We're united in our disgust and in our love for our children. You have no name.
We only call you BK.

Speaker 14 The media has been calling you that too. You're a joke, he said, Steve Gonsalves.

Speaker 14 He made the point that we've shared the videos of our four children with the world. That's what they know.
They know their names. They know their joy.
They know their love for one another.

Speaker 14 They know their

Speaker 14 zest for life. That's who they've been discussing.
He said, the world is watching because of the kids, not because of you. No one cares about you.
You'll be forgotten.

Speaker 14 this moment, we will forget you. Ending with, you picked the wrong family.
Again, we're laughing at you on your trip to the penitentiary.

Speaker 14 And then the big sister, Olivia, making it even more clear. Is the panel with me, Steve?

Speaker 14 Yeah, they're with me. Okay, back with me now.
Phil Holloway.

Speaker 14 Howard Bloom and also Matt Murphy has joined us as well. Guys, that was extraordinary.
Phil, I'll start with you.

Speaker 17 Yeah, you know, Megan, I posted in response to something you posted on X during that, that

Speaker 17 that statement by

Speaker 17 the sister is just the most powerful thing that I have ever heard in terms of victim impact statements. And I hope that her words will echo in his despicable brain for the rest of his natural life.

Speaker 17 Because look, he doesn't have to sit there in prison and worry about ever facing the firing squad in Idaho. But hopefully she has given him something to think about.

Speaker 17 And I hope that it haunts him for all of his days. All of these speakers did a very good job so far in expressing to the public what this kind of thing does to families.
It shatters families.

Speaker 17 You bring step parents in and you bring extended family in and it just the reverberations of this type of cruel, evil attack just seem to be never ending.

Speaker 17 But these human beings have come into this courtroom and have expressed to the world now what the impact is of this type of a horrific crime.

Speaker 17 Even though it's not going to make one difference in the sentence, hopefully it gives this guy something to think about as he rots in prison.

Speaker 14 It's satisfying to watch, whether it changes that sentence or not. There's something very satisfying about watching them say those things to him.

Speaker 14 Howard, the sisters, Olivia's remarks must have jumped out to you because of those questions she was asking him.

Speaker 15 Yes, it was very poignant. It was Old Testament fury.
She was just unleashing all her rage. Though at one point she said, you're afraid to be ordinary.

Speaker 15 I think really when the people were discussing what they missed most, they missed the ordinary moments

Speaker 15 with their loved ones that they'll never have again. It was like a scene from the Thornton Wildler play where he comes back and he looks at his family having breakfast.

Speaker 15 He's in heaven and he can never have that experience again. And that's what they're missing.

Speaker 15 Kohlberger's fate was that he could never be part of that world. He could never be ordinary.
It wasn't that he didn't want to be ordinary. He didn't know how to be ordinary.

Speaker 14 Right. And she went through, Matt Murphy, it was fascinating.

Speaker 14 Those recitations, the questions that she asked, seemed to me to be pulled from Brian Kohlberger's questionnaire that he submitted

Speaker 14 as a PhD student in criminology. It was either as a PhD student or as a master's student at DeSales.

Speaker 14 But he submitted that questionnaire for criminals asking questions like the ones she posited there, like, why did you choose?

Speaker 14 And then she said, My sisters, referring to Maddie as her sisters, to detail you what you were thinking and feeling.

Speaker 14 If memory serves, these are pulled in part directly from his survey. And then she inserted her own questions, like, where's the second murder weapon you used on Kaylee?

Speaker 14 Which was a brand new fact none of us had ever heard.

Speaker 18 Well, she knows that with the prospect of a statement and allocation looming, he's going to have an opportunity perhaps to answer those questions.

Speaker 18 So she's calling him out ahead of time, which I think is very, very clever, because of course he's not going to answer any of those questions.

Speaker 18 Another thing that I think was incredibly powerful about that, and we've talked about this before, Megan, is that when it comes to the personality of the psychopath and that really is what i think brian koberger is they don't really respond to things like a grandmother's tears or the the emotional impact on on on a mother who's lost her child they're almost immune from that sort of thing but when it comes to the narcissism that that is possessed by a lot of psychopaths he cut deep when and and using the language of of people in their 20s he heard all that you're a loser i know

Speaker 18 you're basic, you're not profound. You're pathetic.
And you're exactly right. And she obviously spent a lot of time going through his own writings and knew exactly where those exposed nerves were.

Speaker 18 And I'll tell you what, as I'm listening to that, it was incredibly powerful. I've sat through.

Speaker 18 dozens and dozens and dozens of these things over the years and that one will stand out because if he listens to anybody if he's going to go into prison with anybody's words ringing in his head it is that woman just laying it out.

Speaker 18 And that last thing that you already hit on, if you hadn't attacked them in their sleep like a pedophile, and that's something he's got to be concerned about, especially if he ever sees or even sniffs general population, which I don't think he ever will,

Speaker 18 you know, she is she is raising that, the sexual component that we talked about before. And my sister would have kicked your fucking ass.

Speaker 18 That is, he will, he, he'll hear that and he's going to remember those words, I think.

Speaker 14 It was extra powerful because

Speaker 14 obviously this guy has like some seriously deep misogynistic issues.

Speaker 14 And so for this young, beautiful woman who he knows would also never have him to stand up there and laugh at him and call him pathetic and a loser and tell him this other woman who he could only subdue because she was sleeping would have kicked his fucking ass was so powerful a moment that you, yes, you feel like while while he has no empathy whatsoever for victims he does have feelings about himself and his own deep inadequacies and yes she knew exactly how to twist the knife which is i mean a perfect for now ending to their relationship

Speaker 18 Can I add another element to that as well? Again,

Speaker 18 there was a bit of minor rebellion in that, which I also kind of love. And Judge Hipler handled it perfectly.

Speaker 18 When somebody gives a victim impact statement they're not supposed to address the defendant directly they're supposed to address the court so the fact that mr gonzalez and and her sister both faced him directly and spoke directly to him it's it's kind of pushing the limits of the rules but that was their opportunity to do it and i i really appreciate the fact that the the court did not attempt to correct them on that they had their moment and um i i mean look on behalf in the victim in the victim rights the victim impact world people that have suffered from violent crime Um,

Speaker 18 I mean, that woman, that woman spoke for a lot of people today, and that was very powerful.

Speaker 14 I thought we are right now awaiting the remainder of the Brian Kohlberger sentencing hearing. We've heard from the families of Maddie Mogan and Kaylee Gonsalves.

Speaker 14 We have not yet heard from Ethan Chapin's or Zana Kernodle's families.

Speaker 14 We also heard, and I'll get to this in one second, but an extraordinary moment from the two surviving roommates, which was shocking.

Speaker 14 One had her statement read by a friend. One, One, the one we've been speculating about all along, Howard Bloom, Dylan Mortensen, took to the lectern.
She sat. She wasn't able to stand.

Speaker 14 You could see she was, I mean, a wreck. But

Speaker 14 she spoke about what happened that night. It was remarkable to hear her for the first time.

Speaker 15 You have to admire her courage. I mean, to be able to do that, to relive that moment publicly,

Speaker 15 you know, my heart goes out to her. And yet I'm filled with respect for her at the same time.
And

Speaker 15 I know Koberger, or I speculate, Koberger must have been staring at her and wondering, you know, he saw her at that moment. He let her live what was going on in his mind.
He sat there and he looked,

Speaker 15 in my opinion, diminished today. We saw him earlier on the proceedings.
He was wearing a suit and tie. His hair was jelled.
He was trying to look like a swaggering figure.

Speaker 15 Now he looks like, as the sister said, the loser he's become.

Speaker 14 Yeah, he looks like a convicted felon sitting there in his orange jumpsuit. And Phil, he was almost expressionless for most of the

Speaker 14 testimonials, though at one point when they were talking about Maddie Mogan, her family went first, he had his hands on his swivel chair and he was swiveling a little, like swiveling, like a kid bored in class.

Speaker 14 And then he stopped and just stared everyone down. He was almost expressionless.
When the sister said, sit up, he didn't. He just, he remained motionless.

Speaker 14 But your thoughts on the fact that, back to my other point, the two surviving roommates took the stand. The first one, Bethany Funk, didn't.

Speaker 14 She had a friend who was featured in this documentary that I mentioned on Amazon Prime. Read her statement.
This is a very dear friend of all four of the roommates.

Speaker 14 She got up and read Bethany's statement.

Speaker 14 And I'm just going to play part of what she said because this is the first time we've heard essentially from Bethany Funk, the roommate who was in the basement and didn't hear anything, to whose room Dylan Mortensen ran eventually through at some point that night because she was terrified,

Speaker 14 explain

Speaker 14 what her experience was in those hours and why she didn't immediately know something was wrong or call police. Here's her friend reading her statement.
Listen.

Speaker 50 My name is Bethany Funk, and I was roommates with Maddie, Kaylee, Xana, and Ethan.

Speaker 50 I not only lost some of my best friends, but I also lost a sister.

Speaker 50 Never in a million years would I have,

Speaker 50 would I have thought that something like this would have happened to my closest friends? When I first woke up that morning, I had no idea what happened.

Speaker 50 I woke up around seven with a terrible toothache, so I called my dad, who is a dentist. He told me to take Advil, so I did, and I went back to sleep.

Speaker 50 I was still out of it and still didn't know what happened. If I had known, I of course would have called 911 right away.

Speaker 50 I still carry so much regret and guilt for not knowing what had happened and not calling right away, even though I understand it wouldn't have changed anything, not even if the paramedics had been right outside the door.

Speaker 11 Oh, Phil.

Speaker 17 Yeah, look, there's just no amount of counseling or therapy that can, I think, ever

Speaker 17 bring these survivors,

Speaker 17 you know, what they've lost. I mean, they have to live the rest of their lives with this guilt.

Speaker 17 I mean, I don't personally feel that they have anything to be guilty of or to feel guilty about, but we know they do actually feel that way.

Speaker 17 And this is part of, you know, this is part of what this individual did.

Speaker 17 He not only ceased the lives of four individuals, he effectively destroyed the lives of these other two because all of the things that they were working on, all of the things that they were dreaming and hoping for for the future are now gone.

Speaker 17 And all they are left with is this survivor's grief. And so

Speaker 17 to see them have the courage to finally speak out after all this time,

Speaker 17 you know, hopefully that lets the world sort of understand better the impact of what happens to families and individuals when they're shattered by such violent crime.

Speaker 17 To your point a moment ago about the sister telling Koberger to sit up straight, Megan, I thought I saw a little bit of a

Speaker 17 smirk on his face. I'd have to go back and see it, but I think that she did get his attention.

Speaker 17 I don't know if it was a nervous smirk or if it was some kind of just evil smirk on his face, but I felt like when she told him to sit up straight, I felt like she did get his attention.

Speaker 17 He does sit there without emotion and without remorse,

Speaker 17 which goes to the point that I've been making for all this time is that the death penalty should still be on the table for him because there's no value to remaining in a world with him living in it.

Speaker 17 I think he should have to live in prison every day, worrying about the firing squad in Idaho. Will the marksman hit their mark or is it going to hurt? And he needs to be thinking about those things.

Speaker 17 But instead, he gets to live the rest of his days, perhaps giving interviews and maybe even writing books.

Speaker 17 But to be able to sit there all day and just swivel in his chair and just wait for his trip to prison seems like a very anticlimactic end to all of this.

Speaker 14 Matt Murphy, it seemed to me that the Gonsalves family had made, was making a concerted effort to set the table for this guy to be taken out in prison.

Speaker 14 I mean, if there was a theme, from the Gonsalveses to me, that was it. Steve Gonsalves saying, you picked the wrong families.
You picked the wrong state. You picked the wrong group of people.

Speaker 14 He was basically, because I've heard him on other interviews before saying, this is someone, he's not one of ours. He's not from Idaho.
He came from the East Coast and murdered four of ours.

Speaker 14 And I don't think the prisoners are going to take too kindly to that. The sister calling him a pedophile.
Then the mother. saying

Speaker 14 explicitly, I'm confident that the men in prison will have their way with you in more ways than one. And reading Kaylee Gonsalves's little sister statement,

Speaker 14 you may have received A's in schools, but in prison, you'll be getting big D's, which everyone laughed at and clapped at.

Speaker 14 I mean, the Gonsalves family got a lot of applause in response to those statements. It seems clear what this family wants to have happen to Brian Kohlberger next.

Speaker 18 Well, he'll be in protective custody, no doubt, and they'll do their best to keep him safe. He won't be in general population.

Speaker 18 But look, 40 plus years is an awful long time. And there's, he will, he's going to have a target on him and he's going to have to worry about that.
And protective custody is,

Speaker 18 it's not infallible. And on my Rodney Alcala case, he got beat up in the hallway one day when we're in the middle of trial.

Speaker 18 You know, they're just taking an inmate past him who had buttoned him, spit on him and went off on him. So it is, you know, he will have to look over his shoulder.
And, you know, most families.

Speaker 14 They're back in session. So hold that thought and we'll we'll get back to court and then back to the panel.

Speaker 25 The next family is the family of Xana Cernodle. And first would be Jasmine Cernodle, Xana's sister.

Speaker 46 I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been involved in this and just

Speaker 46 for all the hard work and dedication you guys have put into this.

Speaker 52 I also want to thank everyone for the support and just my family and friends who've been around

Speaker 52 through this time.

Speaker 52 I went back and forth on whether to speak today because the truth is you don't deserve power over my feelings, my words, or me.

Speaker 52 Thank you.

Speaker 12 In the end, I realized this moment isn't about you. It's about justice for Xana, Ethan, Kaylee, and Maddie.
It's about honoring the beautiful, beautiful people they were and still are in God's eyes.

Speaker 12 On November 13th, 2022... 2022,

Speaker 12 peace in my heart was ripped away. There's no way to ever fully describe the weight of losing my sister, my best friend.

Speaker 12 No sentence or punishment will ever come close to the justice Xana, Ethan, Kaylee, and Maddie deserve.

Speaker 12 Xanna was everyone's best friend.

Speaker 12 She was kind. She was funny.
She was a gift to each person she was able to make an impact on. Xanna was someone I turned to when I needed direction or advice.

Speaker 12 Although I am her older sister, I often found myself looking up to her. She had a radiant energy that everyone loved and she always knew the right way to approach a problem.

Speaker 12 She knew how precious and special life was and she truly did live every day to the fullest.

Speaker 5 Yet her story was cut short by an act of evil.

Speaker 12 I believe in a God whose justice is not bound by this courtroom. I find peace knowing that judgment ultimately belongs to him.

Speaker 12 For your sake, I hope one day you feel the full weight of what you did.

Speaker 28 I hope you take accountability.

Speaker 12 I hope you truly experience the guilt and you surrender yourself to Jesus Christ, because no punishment on this earth can ever compare to the isolation and pain of eternal separation from God.

Speaker 12 Xana deserved more, they all did.

Speaker 12 But I come here to say this:

Speaker 12 I am strong, I am brave, I'm a fighter, just like Xana.

Speaker 12 And you don't get to control how I move forward or what I believe. I walk with the comfort of knowing I will see my sister again.

Speaker 12 Xana didn't get the future she deserved.

Speaker 12 She won't be the maid of honor at my wedding. the cool aunt to my future children.

Speaker 12 I'll never hear her laugh or see her light up a room ever again.

Speaker 12 But I will carry her with me for the rest of my life. I will live in her honor, fight to be the best kind of woman and someone she's proud of to make sure the world never forgets who she was.

Speaker 12 Xanna's story doesn't end with what was taken from her. It lives through the love she gave.
the people she touched, and the legacy our family will protect.

Speaker 12 Her light still shines, and her voice will echo louder than this pain.

Speaker 12 You didn't take that from us and you never will.

Speaker 13 Thank you.

Speaker 42 I just want to say before I start I'm Zana's dad, Jeff Kernodle.

Speaker 42 It's been a hard road down, you know, because she's gone.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 42 I want to thank everybody, other families that's speaking so far, spoke about things. I agree with everything they have to say.

Speaker 42 It all comes back to a lot of the same things that I've had to deal with and we as a family have had to deal with.

Speaker 42 And that brings me, you know, basis of... what I'm going to talk about a little bit is on my way up here,

Speaker 42 flying up here on the plane and

Speaker 42 about halfway through the flight, it's a little girl calling out for her dad.

Speaker 42 Hey, dad, dad, dad. And then in my mind, I was kind of half asleep.
It's dark on the lane. I heard Xana calling out for me like she did, you know, back when she was little, five years old.

Speaker 42 And those times were hard.

Speaker 42 It was chaotic. But we always had something to work toward that was in a positive direction

Speaker 42 compared to right now which is necessarily not as positive as that for sure.

Speaker 42 And I know not I'm I miss Zana a lot. My life's been changed and

Speaker 42 Zana had a great impact on me and the impact was when she was gone I realized how important

Speaker 42 she was.

Speaker 42 And what she really did for me, influenced me, was way beyond what I ever thought. She'd call me up on the weekends, check on me, see who's with me.

Speaker 20 She's like

Speaker 42 accountability towards your youngest daughter. And

Speaker 42 that really made a big difference. It made me really think about things and

Speaker 42 what it's all about, you know.

Speaker 42 That's the things that I miss the most is those calls. on the weekends, the calls at Levin and I, what's going on? You want to meet my friend?

Speaker 42 You know, whoever she's, she's with, a couple of her friends, I can meet them, talk to them. And

Speaker 42 she always did that.

Speaker 42 And it was pretty cool.

Speaker 13 Pretty cool. I really missed that.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 20 that has,

Speaker 42 she made a big impact on me,

Speaker 42 on other people, her family. But the impact that she made is so extensive on what happened here.

Speaker 42 And it goes so far. People from everywhere in the world, you know, are following things.
And Xana has made a difference in their lives. So, you know, countless people told me that they might not

Speaker 42 even know her.

Speaker 54 They never knew anything about her.

Speaker 42 It's what they see. And they just are,

Speaker 42 they just love her and say how they wish she could have been their friend.

Speaker 26 You know,

Speaker 42 could have been their friend, could it have hung out? And it's like,

Speaker 42 this is just a blessing, you know, this is the little kid was. And

Speaker 42 definitely was a big, big blessing in my life. And so

Speaker 13 is Jasmine.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 54 basically,

Speaker 42 you know, we worked hard to do the things we did,

Speaker 42 you know, through the times they were growing up.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 42 through those times, I realized that

Speaker 42 I wanted both of them to graduate college and that'd be the ultimate thing for them to do to prepare for the world.

Speaker 42 Then

Speaker 42 it came back to me,

Speaker 42 Xanna didn't get to finish college.

Speaker 42 She had it all figured out.

Speaker 14 Quick break. We'll be right back with ongoing coverage of the sentencing hearing of Brian Kohlberger, confessed killer of the Idaho 4.
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Speaker 14 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.

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Speaker 42 So part that really counted is those memories. And those are what I have left: the memories with her and the ones I can make with her and the life that I can go on with now,

Speaker 42 which is what she wants.

Speaker 42 And I say that in present sense because that's what she wants. Because

Speaker 42 I've been told that, you know, I've had countless ways that she's

Speaker 42 out there and has a way to communicate, which I'm very grateful for.

Speaker 42 That goes to say

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 42 the impact of what happened to them, all the four kids, goes so much further than just not me,

Speaker 42 the parents, the families, the community.

Speaker 42 It goes so far because

Speaker 42 a lot of kids, you know, the colleges, just for an example, they locked their doors now. The door wasn't locked in the back.

Speaker 42 You know, Penn State or wherever it was, all the colleges, i know that i've heard they all lock their doors now so maybe the impact that it's going to make is going to help out and maybe protect some people

Speaker 42 having this outreach and having the influence of what these kids what happened these kids did you know um

Speaker 42 all i know is i was seven miles away when it happened and i had a she wasn't feeling that good It was 1130 and I almost went over to Susanna Sassi and I would have been sitting right there in that couch, and you wanted to deal with me.

Speaker 42 So they would have had a chance. And I regret that, and I regret not going.
But the reason why I didn't is because Susanna said, don't be drinking and driving.

Speaker 42 You have to rent a car.

Speaker 38 Don't be drinking and driving, you know, the week before that.

Speaker 33 So

Speaker 42 she would have been mad at me to do that. But I really wish I would have

Speaker 31 drunk and drove, you know,

Speaker 42 because they would have had a chance, all four of them.

Speaker 42 At this point,

Speaker 42 I just have to go on. We're going to go on with everything

Speaker 42 and make things better in my life, because

Speaker 42 that's what it's all about.

Speaker 2 It's about closure

Speaker 42 and things.

Speaker 42 And the part that we miss is Santa, her influence, her smile, the things that she did.

Speaker 42 And

Speaker 42 we have the memories left, the great memories. And

Speaker 54 she just wants us to make more memories.

Speaker 42 That's all I got.

Speaker 13 Thank you for your words and your courage, and bless your family.

Speaker 25 Next, Kim Carnoto would like to address the court.

Speaker 7 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 5 My name is Kim Cernodel.

Speaker 32 I am Zana's aunt.

Speaker 28 I was very blessed to have her

Speaker 32 in my life, in our family.

Speaker 53 And I thought I had everything in my head, what I wanted to say,

Speaker 53 but it kind of went out.

Speaker 53 And

Speaker 53 I'm always looking for the positive thing

Speaker 30 because

Speaker 19 evil, hate,

Speaker 53 can destroy people.

Speaker 53 And that's what it started doing with our family. It created anger with our family members.

Speaker 32 And then I had to look.

Speaker 53 Because Santa was everything that the media, her friends said.

Speaker 53 She was that

Speaker 53 fun, loving,

Speaker 19 high-spirited, beautiful person.

Speaker 53 And I no longer get to get my nails done with her, have lunch with her.

Speaker 53 Sorry.

Speaker 19 But how I look at it now is this tragedy, this horrible tragedy on all of our, the four children,

Speaker 8 has brought us closer.

Speaker 53 You united us with your actions.

Speaker 13 We're united now, and we're stronger than ever.

Speaker 53 We have family and friends now that we never knew we had.

Speaker 53 And, 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.

Speaker 53 And for me to become a better person,

Speaker 53 I have forgiven you.

Speaker 53 And anytime you want to talk and tell me what happened, get my number.

Speaker 32 I'm here.

Speaker 53 No judgment. Because I do have answers or questions that I want you to answer.

Speaker 34 and I'm here.

Speaker 53 I'll be that one that'll listen to you.

Speaker 21 Okay?

Speaker 27 Thank you, Yohunner.

Speaker 6 Thank you very much.

Speaker 37 My name is Stratton Cronodle, and I'm Xander's uncle, Jeff's brother.

Speaker 37 Sitting here today listening to all the

Speaker 37 stories and feelings

Speaker 37 and feeling the pain from everybody

Speaker 37 is

Speaker 37 a pretty powerful thing.

Speaker 37 Each time a statement was read,

Speaker 6 it

Speaker 37 sort of would tug into my center core as I felt everybody's anguish.

Speaker 37 And

Speaker 54 Santa meant a lot to us, and we loved her very much.

Speaker 37 But I started thinking about instead of

Speaker 37 rehashing everything that everybody else has talked about, about.

Speaker 37 I wanted to direct it another direction

Speaker 37 toward Brian and what he's done to his family,

Speaker 37 his parents, his siblings, his friends,

Speaker 42 his universe.

Speaker 37 He has contaminated, tainted their family name,

Speaker 37 and pretty much made

Speaker 37 a horrible, miserable thing to be ever related to him. And I know that that's what he has to live with, and that has to be his pain.

Speaker 39 And that's all I have to say.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 25 Next, Your Honor, I believe Randy Davis, stepfather to Santa Cronoda, would like to address the court.

Speaker 47 Hi, my name's Randy.

Speaker 24 Stepdad is Anna.

Speaker 24 I just feel the same way we all do. We're all of us united

Speaker 24 because of something that happened, and I am grateful to know

Speaker 24 and have met some new family because of this awful event.

Speaker 24 But this is probably the last time we're all going to be in the same room together.

Speaker 16 Let's be real.

Speaker 24 So I can say I love you all and I feel your pain

Speaker 24 and just God bless us all you know

Speaker 43 just get through it

Speaker 24 I had stuff wrote up it was probably best I didn't read it out

Speaker 24 probably get kicked out of here so

Speaker 24 you know I'll share one thing to you guys not to you

Speaker 24 with Zanna

Speaker 34 so

Speaker 24 I was working in North Dakota and came home

Speaker 24 and Jazzy and Xana had

Speaker 24 taken our son Elijah and put him in a dress

Speaker 24 makeup and it was it was awful you know

Speaker 24 I was like I just I I don't know she was funny I told her she'd be a in the movies and be somebody great one day like that and now she is just above us as an angel with all the other beautiful kids So let's hold that to our hearts because this evil thing is not going to take nothing from us.

Speaker 6 You,

Speaker 5 man,

Speaker 24 I don't know what my limits are here, but I'm really struggling, dude. I am struggling.

Speaker 2 So I want to, I want to.

Speaker 14 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly Show. We're listening here to Xana Cornodles

Speaker 14 stepdad Randy.

Speaker 3 I'm not, I blow, I love God.

Speaker 24 I wouldn't take your life. That's up to him.

Speaker 3 But I guarantee you, you are weak.

Speaker 6 God,

Speaker 24 I would just give a moment, man, five minutes out in the woods.

Speaker 22 Oh, man.

Speaker 41 You're going to go to hell.

Speaker 24 I know people believe in other stuff.

Speaker 3 You're evil.

Speaker 24 There's no place for you in heaven.

Speaker 3 You took our children.

Speaker 3 You are going to suffer, man.

Speaker 24 I'm shaking because I want to reach out to you, but I just, I hope you feel my energy, okay?

Speaker 24 Go to hell.

Speaker 25 Next is Kara Northington, Santa's mother.

Speaker 28 I'm Karen Northington. I am Santa Cernodle's mother.

Speaker 28 This letter is to you, really.

Speaker 28 But it is for my daughter, who was murdered by you.

Speaker 28 Today I stand before you,

Speaker 28 the man who is responsible for murdering my beautiful daughter, Santa Cernodle.

Speaker 28 My daughter was beautiful both inside and out. She possessed love for those around her and had a light so bright it will live on forever in our hearts.

Speaker 28 She brought joy and laughter to her friends, her family, and anyone in her presence.

Speaker 28 Our Lord and and Savior, Jesus Christ,

Speaker 28 now has her in his loving arms in heaven,

Speaker 28 where she can never be harmed ever again, for eternity.

Speaker 28 Because of her, I came to know my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because of her, many will come to Christ.

Speaker 28 It is Christ who lives in me that has given me the strength to forgive you.

Speaker 28 It was of no power of my own.

Speaker 28 In return, the Lord has filled me with joy, hope, and peace that surpasses all understanding.

Speaker 28 Jesus has allowed me to forgive you for murdering my daughter without you even being sorry

Speaker 28 or asking for this.

Speaker 28 This is only possible because he who lives in me is greater than any evil in this world.

Speaker 28 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Speaker 28 I do not fear you or even

Speaker 28 let you rent space in my head anymore.

Speaker 28 This forgiveness has released me from any and all evil you have inflicted on me and my family.

Speaker 28 It has allowed me to let

Speaker 28 our Lord deal with you.

Speaker 28 You have accepted a deal that will prevent you from receiving the death penalty.

Speaker 28 Nothing man can do to you can ever compare to the wrath of God.

Speaker 28 Inevitably, you will stand before our Lord and will have to answer to him over the sins you have committed in murdering our children.

Speaker 28 I pray you come to the end of yourself before that day.

Speaker 28 Whether you like it or not, heaven is for real and so is hell.

Speaker 28 The innocent life of Xana that you stole from myself and my family and the destruction of this

Speaker 28 and the destruction it has caused.

Speaker 28 I am washing my hands of you and turning you over to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whom vengeance belongs to.

Speaker 28 In closing, I want to read a passage from the Bible, Ephesians 6, King James Version.

Speaker 28 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and then in the power of his might.

Speaker 28 Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

Speaker 28 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,

Speaker 28 against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day.

Speaker 28 I'm not going to share memories of Xana or any more

Speaker 28 of the goodness of her with you because I do not want that to be in your head. I don't want it to be in your head.
You don't deserve that. You don't deserve our good memories that we have.

Speaker 28 I do pray for you. I pray that you come to the end of yourself.
I pray that before this life is over, that you ask our Lord and Savior in your heart to forgive you. I do pray for that.

Speaker 28 But after today, I wash my hands of you, and you are no longer a thing.

Speaker 26 Thank you.

Speaker 14 Thank you.

Speaker 25 I don't believe the state has any other victim impact statement.

Speaker 13 Right, state can argue.

Speaker 22 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 22 Just as a housekeeping matters start,

Speaker 22 there will be the issue of restitution.

Speaker 22 That is the documentation being gathered, and we ask if the court would defer that for 30 days so we can present it in an orderly fashion and make sure it's comprehensive for everyone.

Speaker 13 Any objection to leaving restitution open in 60 days?

Speaker 13 All right.

Speaker 22 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 22 I think it's necessary and appropriate to share for everyone here, including the court,

Speaker 22 the background that brings us in front of Your Honor today for these proceedings.

Speaker 22 As the record reflects, and as everybody in this courtroom knows, the defendant has pleaded guilty to all five counts charged in the indictment.

Speaker 22 Under oath before Your Honor, he has admitted that the charges against him are true.

Speaker 22 He has reassured the court that

Speaker 22 He has not been coerced or threatened to make those admissions.

Speaker 22 And Your Honor did an extraordinary job in taking taking the pleas back on July 2nd. We appreciate the court's discipline and insight.

Speaker 22 The defendant has also waived appeal on the multitude of rulings from this court and Your Honor's predecessor in Leytaw County on dozens of literally dozens of motions seeking to dismiss the case.

Speaker 6 seeking to

Speaker 22 control or limit evidence, seeking to offer evidence that would not be appropriate. And we appreciate the court's consistent rulings based on the law, based on the facts.

Speaker 22 As Your Honor will recall, on June 18th, it's just really not that long ago, we appeared before this court for arguments on what became the defendants' final motions to this court.

Speaker 22 Motion where they wanted to offer evidence suggesting that other people were responsible for the defendant's actions,

Speaker 22 and the motion seeking essentially an indefinite continuance of the trial.

Speaker 22 It was readily apparent to all of us in the courtroom from Your Honor's comments that those motions were not going to be granted.

Speaker 3 So we returned to Moscow

Speaker 22 and continued with what we had been working on for months in preparation for trial.

Speaker 22 We had no qualms about going to trial if trial was what was necessary and appropriate.

Speaker 44 The following week, after we were in court,

Speaker 22 we were approached by the defense with an inquiry about a possible plea.

Speaker 22 And I can tell the court this is the first suggestion ever that there was any consideration, because indeed, the defense had maintained from the beginning

Speaker 22 that Mr. Koberger, the defendant, was factually innocent.

Speaker 22 It's clear that the reality of the evidence and the case that had been investigated and prepared and that we were ready to present in court became a reality.

Speaker 7 Our reaction,

Speaker 22 among other things, was to reach out to all the families.

Speaker 22 And in fact, later that week, on Thursday and Friday of that last week of June, we met with representatives by teams, virtual meetings, with representatives of all the families.

Speaker 22 And we talked about the status of the case

Speaker 22 and the upcoming trial and things that related to the trial.

Speaker 7 And we also

Speaker 22 let them know that there had been an inquiry about whether there might be an offer for a plea. And we asked the family members for their thoughts and feelings.

Speaker 43 And they were candid. And they have been candid since, and we respect that.

Speaker 22 And we understand,

Speaker 44 recognize, and acknowledge

Speaker 22 that there was a difference of opinion among representatives of the different families. We understand that.

Speaker 22 One of the challenges of this case, one of the unique things about this case, is we have multiple victims, each unique unto themselves,

Speaker 22 their families and friends unique unto themselves, and all of them entitled to their opinions. All of them entitled to their thoughts.

Speaker 22 Over the following weekend, our prosecution team,

Speaker 3 very

Speaker 43 skilled attorneys who were personally as well as professionally, deeply invested in this case, met

Speaker 44 And we talked. And

Speaker 22 the decision was reached. Well, to start with, were there to be any sort of plea offer or discussion, there's only one possibility.

Speaker 22 And that would be for the defendant to plead guilty straight up to all charges. There would be no bargaining about counts.

Speaker 22 There would be no bargaining about reduced sentences.

Speaker 22 And so we made

Speaker 22 the proposal to the defense

Speaker 22 that, if the defendant was willing to plead guilty upfront to all five counts as charged and waive appeal

Speaker 22 of the court's myriad decisions during the past two and a half plus years on all these motions that would have consumed years, if not decades,

Speaker 44 of time in the future.

Speaker 22 By the end of the weekend, we were notified the defense that the defendant was prepared to plead guilty as charged

Speaker 6 and factually acknowledge his responsibility in court for these horrible crimes.

Speaker 22 Obviously, those discussions and negotiations were confidential.

Speaker 22 And as Your Honor noted, I believe, that was necessarily so, because if

Speaker 22 the defendant had decided not to plead guilty, it would have been devastating to our jury pool for there to be public information that there had been consideration by either party

Speaker 22 to a plea resolution.

Speaker 22 And protecting the prospective integrity of a trial after so many years was paramount.

Speaker 22 So, the end of the weekend came.

Speaker 44 We notified the victims' families of what had occurred. We recognize,

Speaker 22 I recognize and acknowledge personally, and I respect the fact

Speaker 22 that of these fine suffering people here, not everybody agreed with the decision we make.

Speaker 31 I accept that.

Speaker 43 It's my responsibility to the end.

Speaker 22 I recognize that that's the duty of the office that I hold.

Speaker 6 So now

Speaker 22 it is time for the judicial system

Speaker 22 to impose final judgment

Speaker 22 and close the door on this chapter of these tragedies.

Speaker 22 As the court is aware, by the agreement of the parties, it is the state's prayer.

Speaker 22 Perhaps have the elmo please turned on.

Speaker 22 Thank you.

Speaker 22 That on Count 1, the felony burglary, that the court sentenced the defendant to the maximum period of 10 years fixed in the custody of the

Speaker 22 Idaho Department of Correction.

Speaker 4 Then on count two,

Speaker 22 that the court sentenced the defendant to fixed life for the murder

Speaker 22 of Matty Mogan.

Speaker 22 On count three,

Speaker 22 that the court sentenced the defendant

Speaker 22 to fixed life for the murder of Kaylee Gonzalez.

Speaker 34 On count four, 4,

Speaker 43 that the court sentenced the defendant

Speaker 22 to fixed life

Speaker 6 for the murder

Speaker 43 of Zanak Cornhodl.

Speaker 22 On Count Five,

Speaker 6 that the court sentenced the defendant

Speaker 44 to fixed life

Speaker 22 for the murder

Speaker 22 of Ethan Chapin.

Speaker 43 And the state further prays that these sentences

Speaker 43 be ordered to run consecutively, back to back, not at the same time,

Speaker 43 to recognize and respect

Speaker 22 the unique individuality of each of these beautiful young people whose lives were taken brutally and for no reason.

Speaker 43 And hopefully now,

Speaker 22 as we have heard

Speaker 22 earlier this morning, it is time to afford the families and the friends and the community and the state of Idaho.

Speaker 43 and the nation and the world to move forward.

Speaker 22 We can't undo and we can never undo the horror of what occurred on the early morning hours of November 13th,

Speaker 22 2022, at 1122 King Street in Moscow, Idaho.

Speaker 22 For a long time, the presiding district judge in Leyto County was John Stegner, who eventually became a member and a justice of the Idaho Supreme Court. And Judge Justice

Speaker 43 Stegner Stegner

Speaker 22 often observed

Speaker 22 that even God cannot change the past.

Speaker 6 But everyone in this room

Speaker 39 has the ability to take themselves forward

Speaker 22 and we want the judicial system to afford them the opportunity today to do that.

Speaker 3 From today forward, our memories should be focused

Speaker 22 on these innocent victims whose lives were taken, on their families, on their friends, on the community.

Speaker 22 The court has heard discussion, talk today, reminisces today

Speaker 22 about a special family that our victims shared, not just their natural legal and biological families, not just their university family within their sororities, for example.

Speaker 2 But this family.

Speaker 29 This is the picture

Speaker 22 taken on November 12th,

Speaker 22 2022

Speaker 44 of the special family of 1122

Speaker 22 King Road.

Speaker 22 And you can see all six of these dynamic, vibrant, loving,

Speaker 22 special, innocent faces.

Speaker 22 taken together just across the street from their residence

Speaker 22 and barely 12 hours before four of them would be brutally murdered in their sleep.

Speaker 43 They've been described consistently as being bright, caring, vivacious

Speaker 22 with futures we can only imagine now.

Speaker 6 But they were

Speaker 43 and they remain a special family that I think we should all recognize and appreciate.

Speaker 22 So it's time to move forward.

Speaker 22 There have been a number of statements directed specifically at the defendant today.

Speaker 22 I have one last thought.

Speaker 43 After Your Honor imposes judgment

Speaker 22 and sentences the defendant to spend the rest of his life in prison. In other words, sentence the defendant to die in prison.

Speaker 44 He's going to stand up

Speaker 22 in the belly chains and leg irons that he's wearing today,

Speaker 22 and he's going to be escorted into the custody of the Idaho Department of Correction.

Speaker 22 And the door will close behind him

Speaker 6 forever.

Speaker 22 That is the closure

Speaker 43 that we seek,

Speaker 22 that all of these

Speaker 22 people, these loving friends and family deserve

Speaker 22 so that we can move forward.

Speaker 22 Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 46 Thank you.

Speaker 13 All right, does the defense have evidence to present today?

Speaker 13 No, I have to comment.

Speaker 13 All right.

Speaker 5 Does the fence

Speaker 13 wish to make argument today?

Speaker 13 Runner, we do not wish to make argument. Mr.
Koberger, along with his legal team, is prepared for the court's appearance of these.

Speaker 13 All right, Mr. Koberger, you have an opportunity to make a statement.
If you wish to, I take it you are declining.

Speaker 40 I respectfully decline.

Speaker 40 Please.

Speaker 54 All right, let me

Speaker 23 start

Speaker 13 this morning.

Speaker 5 by

Speaker 13 acknowledging and and thanking

Speaker 13 those that have come here today in support of their loved ones. And I appreciate your courage and your strength.

Speaker 13 And I hope that you are able to move on as best as possible.

Speaker 13 Thank counsel for the professionalism that they've exhibited throughout this case. It's been my great honor to preside in this case and to help bring,

Speaker 13 to the extent possible some

Speaker 13 resolution and hopefully justice to this case.

Speaker 13 During the quiet morning hours of November 13, 2022, a faceless coward breached the tranquility of six beautiful young people

Speaker 13 and senselessly slaughtered them, four of them.

Speaker 13 Who committed this unspeakable evil was unknown for several weeks, but due to the killer's incompetence and outstanding police work by numerous local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, the person that slithered through that sliding glass door at 1122 King Road now stands before the world and this court unmasked.

Speaker 13 This unfathomable and senseless act of evil has caused immeasurable pain and loss.

Speaker 13 No parent should ever have to bury their child.

Speaker 13 This is the greatest tragedy that can be inflicted upon a person.

Speaker 13 Parents who took their children to college in a truck filled with moving boxes had to bring them home in hearses lined with coffins.

Speaker 13 The loss this killer inflicted was not just the death of these people's children, siblings, grandchildren, as we've heard today.

Speaker 13 It has ripped a hole in their soul, destroying a special part of their very essence.

Speaker 13 Any person who is a parent defines themselves foremost as such.

Speaker 13 It is their existence and purpose of being

Speaker 13 and it has been stolen from these parents.

Speaker 13 None of us have experienced the loss these victims have in the unspeakable way that they have.

Speaker 13 And therefore, none of us can, nor should we, question the way in which they have handled their loss, whether that be in private mourning, removed as far as possible from this media circus,

Speaker 13 or in front of a camera demanding retribution with the loudest megaphone.

Speaker 13 I've listened intently to the stories and pain that have been shared today

Speaker 13 with great awe at the courage and resilience of the surviving family members of those wonderful children.

Speaker 13 I've listened also to the surviving roommates, roommates, both in person and through their friends.

Speaker 13 And I can't think of how frankly courageous they have been despite the hell that they have faced by uncaring people

Speaker 13 who have come up with all kinds of crazy theories

Speaker 13 about two kids simply being kids.

Speaker 13 The parents, siblings, siblings, and other family members who have spoken today

Speaker 13 are designated as victims in our legal system. But going forward, I hope that they can shed that label, as it gives too much power to the evil that condemned them to that role.

Speaker 13 They are and should be known as survivors, fighters, and foremost as witnesses to the tremendous lives of value and unbounded promise of these four young people.

Speaker 13 But those speaking today and those who did not speak but who carry this same burden, this same loss, now carry forward the memories of these now perpetually young people, these forever children.

Speaker 13 These survivors carry the responsibility of ensuring that the voices

Speaker 13 of these children, Maddie, Kaylee, Zannah, and Ethan, are never forgotten.

Speaker 13 and the positive impacts that they have had on so many lives are never minimized, and that the love they shared, the light that they shined onto others, is forever celebrated.

Speaker 13 As we sit here today, this case is ending, and we are now certain who committed these unspeakable acts of evil, but we don't know,

Speaker 13 and what we may never know is why.

Speaker 13 I share the desire expressed by others to understand the why, but upon reflection, it seems to me, and this is just my own opinion, that by continuing to focus on why, we continue to give Mr.

Speaker 13 Koberger relevance. We give him agency and we give him power.

Speaker 13 The need to know what is inherently not understandable makes us dependent upon the defendant to provide us with a reason, and that gives him the spotlight, the attention, and the power he appears to crave.

Speaker 13 Yet even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, cannot, how could anyone ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?

Speaker 13 Do we really believe, after all of this, he's capable of speaking the truth or of giving up something of himself to help the very people whose lives he destroyed?

Speaker 13 Rather, I suspect the so-called reason would be dished out in enticing, self-serving, and aggrandizing untruthful bits,

Speaker 13 leaving people wanting more information, more insight, and thus enhancing even further the power he seeks to hold.

Speaker 13 Even if we could get truthful insight into his why, I suspect it would not in any way quench one's thirst for actually understanding why in the first instance.

Speaker 13 Because there is no reason for these crimes that could approach anything

Speaker 13 resembling rationality.

Speaker 13 No conceivable reason could make any sense.

Speaker 13 And in the end, the more we struggle to seek explanation for the unexplainable, the more we try to extract a reason, the more power and control we give to him.

Speaker 13 In my view, the time has now come to end Mr. Kohlberger's 15 minutes of fame.
It's time that he be consigned to the ignominy and isolation of perpetual incarceration.

Speaker 13 I know there has been concern about him collaborating on books or movies or other media projects, and I truly hope that someone does not stoop to affording him this spotlight that he desires in the name of clicks, royalties, or profits.

Speaker 13 While criminal behaviorists should study him away from the spotlight in an attempt to prevent other would-be killers from acting on their worst impulses, there should be no need for that to spill over into the public eye.

Speaker 13 The great Idaho jurist Edward Lodge was known for trying to find something positive about every person he ever sentenced. And with over a half a century as a trial judge, that was a lot of people.

Speaker 13 This was often challenging, and I recall in one case he said that the best he could come up with was the defendant had good penmanship.

Speaker 13 Truth be told, I'm unable to come up with anything redeeming about Mr.

Speaker 13 Koberger because his grotesque acts of evil have buried and hidden anything that might have been good or intrinsically human about him.

Speaker 13 His actions have made him the worst of the worst.

Speaker 13 Even in pleading guilty, he is giving nothing hinting of remorse or redemption, nothing suggesting even a recognition or understanding, let alone regret for, the pain that he has caused.

Speaker 13 And therefore, I will not attempt to speak about him further, other than to simply sentence him. so that he is forever removed from civilized society.

Speaker 13 And accordingly, based upon his conduct and based upon the record before this court,

Speaker 13 recognizing the standards that govern this court's sentencing decisions as set forth in State B2Hill, I hereby sentence Mr. Kohlberger as follows.

Speaker 2 On Count 1, burglary, 10 years fixed,

Speaker 13 zero years indeterminate.

Speaker 13 I also impose a fine of $50,000.

Speaker 13 Count two, first-degree murder of Madison Mogan. I sentence the defendant to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a fine of $50,000,

Speaker 13 and a civil penalty of $5,000 payable to the family of the victim.

Speaker 20 On Count 3,

Speaker 13 for first-degree murder of Kayleigh Gonsalves, I sentenced the defendant to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a fine of $50,000, and a civil penalty of $5,000 payable to the victim of the family, or to the family of the victim, pardon me.

Speaker 13 On Count 4 for the first-degree murder of Xana Carnoto, I sentenced the defendant to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a fine of $50,000, and a civil penalty of $5,000 payable to the family of the victim.

Speaker 13 On Count 5, for the first-degree murder of Ethan Chapin, I sentenced the defendant to a fixed term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a fine of $50,000, and a civil penalty of $5,000 payable to the family of the victim.

Speaker 13 The sentences on counts one, two, three, four, and five shall run consecutively to one another. Restitution will be left open for 60 days.

Speaker 13 Defendant will be required to submit a DNA sample and a right thumb print

Speaker 13 to the Department of Corrections and comply with the DNA Database Act.

Speaker 13 I remand the defendant to the custody of the Idaho State Board of Corrections for to be imprisoned in an appropriate facility in execution of the sentence where he will remain until he dies.

Speaker 13 Though you have waived your right to appeal, you do have a right to file a notice of appeal, and any such appeal must be filed within 42 days of the date of the written judgment,

Speaker 13 which will be entered

Speaker 13 shortly hereafter.

Speaker 13 Though the appeal, you should be aware, may be deemed a violation of the plea agreement, and so I certainly suggest you discuss that with counsel if that is your desire

Speaker 20 I ask the

Speaker 13 media and public present to allow the families to be escorted out first before they leave

Speaker 13 again thank you to everyone for your stories today I am strengthened by them and I am encouraged by your humanity and strength and God bless you. We are adjourned.

Speaker 14 Incredible day in court in Boise, Idaho, not far from where these crimes were committed.

Speaker 14 In Moscow, Idaho, where four college students with everything in front of them, happy lives, beautiful friendships, boyfriends, girlfriends, families who love them, went to college one day and for some reason, as the judge points out, that will never fully understand,

Speaker 14 had their lives snuffed out at 4, 4-12 in the morning by that thing sitting there at counsel's table wearing orange Brian Kohlberger

Speaker 14 he didn't speak at all except for the one line when the court said mr. Kohlberger do you wish to make a statement

Speaker 14 and like the good little schoolboy He said I respectfully decline still looking for some sort of pat on the top of the head still acting like the PhD student who could get an A for his classroom behavior and trying to fool us into thinking he's respectful in any way.

Speaker 14 Here's that moment.

Speaker 50 All right, Mr. Koberger, you have an opportunity to make a statement if you wish to.

Speaker 13 I take it you are declining.

Speaker 40 I respectfully decline.

Speaker 14 What's that about? Who does he think he's fooling? What a joke this man is.

Speaker 14 I use that term very loosely. The judge sentencing him as expected to the maximum on all counts, 10 years in prison on the burglary count, life without, well, he didn't say without parole.

Speaker 14 Talk to Matt about that in a minute, but life for Maddie, life for Kaylee, life for Zana, life for Ethan to run consecutively, meaning one after the other, along with $50,000 in fines for each victim and

Speaker 14 a $5,000 civil penalty to the family.

Speaker 14 This is the end, technically, guys. My panel's back with me, Phil Holloway, Howard Bloom, and Matt Murphy.
This is the end.

Speaker 14 I don't know.

Speaker 14 I guess it feels unsatisfying. Matt, you've been through this so many times.
Does it always feel unsatisfying?

Speaker 18 Well, it's always a little antaclimactic when there's a plea, Megan.

Speaker 18 I think that if this was a sentencing after a jury trial,

Speaker 18 we might feel a little bit different because we would have really seen the exhaustion of all the evidence that was available. We would have seen and heard every detail of this investigation.

Speaker 18 And I just, again, I've said it before, but kudos to the police here. They really are the heroes on this, from the local police department to the state troopers of Idaho to the FBI.

Speaker 18 They really did an outstanding job. And I hope people remember that.
The only reason why we had this sensing is because of the hard work of those men and women.

Speaker 18 And I was really grateful to see the family members acknowledge them in that. Even

Speaker 18 Mr. Gonzalez, as angry as he was, he gave a shout out to the police, which I thought was

Speaker 18 really dignified.

Speaker 18 But I'm just, I'm struck by this judge. It's important for people to remember that all judges are not created equal.

Speaker 18 And this, Judge Hipler did a fantastic job. I thought that his comments were exactly on point.

Speaker 18 And I think that he really spoke to all of us when he said, you know, the more we wonder why in something that he would never tell the truth on and is really unexplainable anyway, the more we continue to give him him power.

Speaker 18 Now, everybody wants to know why, because we want to prevent it, we want to see it coming, we want to know what to look for to prevent the next Brian Koberger. But

Speaker 18 I thought that he was outstanding. And remember, he did not have to impose that.

Speaker 18 This was discretionary with the court. That was one of my criticisms of Thompson at the beginning.
He surrendered that power to sentence to the,

Speaker 18 they call it fixed life in Idaho, which is life without possibility of parole. The court imposed that upon its own own discretion.
So hats off to the court.

Speaker 18 I thought that judge really did an outstanding job today, and he did exactly the right thing. And I thought his comments are something that we should all think about.

Speaker 14 It was. It was a new perspective setter because we're all so unsatisfied without him not having to explain why.
But it was a good reminder of like, who cares? Who cares?

Speaker 14 What could he possibly say that would satisfy any of us? You know, this Cretan, this human excrement sitting there. I don't know what happened to him, but he doesn't seem human to me.

Speaker 14 He seems otherworldly. And I don't mean that in a complimentary way.
He just seems like something, frankly, that needs to be snuffed out.

Speaker 14 But the next best thing, Howard, is to have him rot in prison for the rest of his life. And I'm picturing the door closing behind him, as the judge said.

Speaker 15 I'm from the set that finds this deeply unsatisfying. There were two diametrically opposed positions presented today.
One was by the Gonsalves family that raised questions, specific questions.

Speaker 15 They wanted answers. The judge, in effect, said, let's move on.
He said that literally. Let's move on.
We can forget about it. Well, I think it's too soon to forget about it.

Speaker 15 Yes, we'll never know a rational reason why he did it. But there still are other questions remaining.
Where is the knife? How did he cover up his tracks? I would like more answers.

Speaker 15 I think the people of Idaho, the families, and all of us, the public, should have been presented with more answers.

Speaker 14 You know, I did think it was a little odd, Phil, that the prosecutor Bill Thompson spent a good chunk of his closing remarks trying to talk about how he notified the families of the pending plea.

Speaker 14 It was like he was trying to rehabilitate himself in response to Steve Gonsalves' complaints about the way the plea was handled. I just thought that was totally inappropriate.

Speaker 14 It reminded me of the judge when Kohlberger, you know, pleaded guilty, making it all about the phone calls he'd received from people who were out. Like, stop making it about yourself.

Speaker 14 This isn't about you rehabbing you.

Speaker 17 You know, I've been pretty critical about this prosecution team, not for the quality of the case they put together, because as others have correctly mentioned, they did a great job along with the law enforcement who investigated this case.

Speaker 17 But from a PR perspective, I think that they really dropped the ball. And to see an extension of that today, it was almost like you saw a little bit of grandstanding.

Speaker 17 This is not a, there's no jury present. It's just a judge.
This is a non-jury proceeding. So it was a bit over the top in terms of theatrics.
And as you mentioned, it seemed to be aimed at.

Speaker 17 rehabilitating their own image for those of us in the public who are being somewhat critical.

Speaker 17 They, in my view, should have had all all of the families in agreement on this plea deal, or there would be no deal. That's just my opinion.

Speaker 17 That's how I would have played it if I had been the prosecutor, because that would have perhaps left us with perhaps some little bit more increased measure of satisfaction.

Speaker 17 We're all left unsatisfied right now. Think about how the families must feel as they're leaving the courthouse.
But had there been a trial and a sentencing hearing with

Speaker 17 evidence and aggravation, we might have known a lot more because as we go forward today, we're all left with these lingering questions of why, why did this have to happen? Why did it happen?

Speaker 17 And because I think the decisions the prosecutor made, we're going to be left with these answers. And let me just point this one thing out.

Speaker 17 This court today rendered a judgment. There can be a judgment in any case.
But when we speak of what justice is, was justice delivered?

Speaker 17 You know, justice is one of those words that's incapable of being defined. And it's in the the eye of the beholder.

Speaker 17 But I would submit that there is no amount of justice, whatever it may be, that can possibly apply to this case.

Speaker 17 Because the magnitude of the destruction, not only of the individuals' lives who are taken, but the destruction that is left in the wake of this evil, evil, evil act is not capable of receiving adequate justice, in my view.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 17 there's, I think, always going to be some measure of dissatisfaction because justice just can't address this kind of evil.

Speaker 14 So well said. It's just, it captures what I'm feeling right now.
When I listened to, for example, Kaylee's sister speak, I felt like, yes, this is what I want. You know, I want to hear him humiliated.

Speaker 14 I'm enjoying this, that piece. But everything else has just left me with this empty feeling of like,

Speaker 14 why?

Speaker 14 Not demanding an explanation but just the you know the human evil the the evil that that walks amongst us as human beings and the snuffing out of these four lives with nothing but promise in front of them and steve gonsalves was right they did a very good job those families of getting out the videos of those four kids and helping us get to know them howard and fall in love with the four of them and their huge thousand watt smiles and the the joy they clearly felt on the idaho campus and the football games they celebrated and the dance parties the one sister mentioned, you know, like these, these were jubilant, really happy, lovely kids, just American kids trying to get an education and have a good time.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 he resented it without him saying anything. We know you've written about it.
He couldn't stand their happiness.

Speaker 15 I mean, Steve, to my mind, is a hero throughout this whole thing. He refused to just move on.
Everyone else, the judge, the prosecutor, they kept on repeating that phrase, it's time to move on.

Speaker 15 It's time to move on. Well, the reality is none of these families are ever going to be able to move on.
I don't think the town of Moscow will be able to move on.

Speaker 15 And I think we should have been given some answers.

Speaker 15 You know, the sister Olivia raised the questions. The questions were, as you pointed out, very similar to the questions.
Kohlberg included in his master's dissertation, the distributed prisons.

Speaker 15 He should be asked those questions. We should be getting those answers.

Speaker 14 You know, that's the other thing. The judge is like, well, I really hope no journalist or, you know, publishing house gives him the opportunity to give an interview or write a book.

Speaker 14 First of all, he's not allowed to make money on a book. That's illegal.
But that's not to say, I guess one couldn't be published and where he wouldn't get paid.

Speaker 14 And he certainly is going to get the knock on the door from journalists up and down the spectrum and

Speaker 14 Catherine Rumsfeld or Rumsfeld or whatever her last name, or unless I'm forgetting her last name. Thank you, Ramslin.

Speaker 14 His former master's professor at DeSales University has said she'd like to study him. He'll love all of that.
Look, that's just human nature. People want to study serial killers.
It's a natural thing.

Speaker 14 We want to understand. But I will say to this, Judge Hippler, you know what would have made it slightly less likely is if your DA required him.

Speaker 14 to really cop to the crime and explain himself at this sentencing hearing, Matt.

Speaker 14 You know, like him allowing this defendant to remain an enigma, to not say anything, is only going to make the press and everyone else more interested in him.

Speaker 18 Yeah, can I, I want to add on to that a little bit, Megan. And I want to be fair here because it's a tough job.
You're the elected DA. You got a lot going on.
You have the families.

Speaker 18 There are good reasons. Look, when it comes to appellate issues, things like that, all of that is real and it gives some finality.
I hate the word closure. He used used it.
I think that's a trope.

Speaker 18 These families, like Howard pointed out, there's no closure for them. But so that said, I want to be fair to the prosecutor.
However, that little speech that he gave,

Speaker 18 that performative aspect of that, first of all, the seminal case in the United States, okay,

Speaker 18 seems to be out of Idaho. It's a Sonia Sotomayor, 2019 opinion from the United States Supreme Court called Garza versus Idaho.

Speaker 18 Thompson made this big point of saying he waives his appellate rights. The case in the United States out of Idaho that says you can't actually ever waive your appellate rights.

Speaker 18 Okay, so that's not real.

Speaker 18 And it is the law that he can still, as the court pointed out at the end, you got 42 days to file your notice of appeal.

Speaker 18 It might breach the plea because that essentially is a contract, but now it's post-sentence saying, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see him file notice of appeal. And you can do that.

Speaker 18 And that's for direct appeal. We still have the entire habeas process, which is another way to challenge a conviction.
And Thompson gave that up with his plea. He did.
He did. He knows he did.

Speaker 18 And look, there's good reasons for, good reasons against.

Speaker 18 I know Philip here. I wouldn't have given him this deal.

Speaker 18 You know, death penalty cases are hard. That goes with the job.
Dealing with family members who disagree, you know, also that's a part of the job. But another thing that really does disturb me.

Speaker 18 a little bit on this is there's a saying, Megan.

Speaker 18 So goes California, it goes the rest of the nation. We've all heard that before.
There are huge movements and legislative

Speaker 18 pushes in the state of California to eliminate LWAP or Life Without Possibility Parole as a sentence. 40 years is a long time.

Speaker 18 And the last time we talked about this, I said, I think he's going to get a parole hearing one day.

Speaker 19 And under current Idaho law,

Speaker 18 he will not. The way the court did this, they call it fixed life.
Almost every other state calls it life without possibility parole.

Speaker 18 I think it's North Carolina calls it life without mercy. Every state has its own.
Hold that thought.

Speaker 14 Hold that thought. I want to hear the end of this, but I'm about to hit a hard break on SiriusXM.
We'll continue on pod and youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

Speaker 14 SiriusXMers, thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you over at YouTube and on Pod.

Speaker 14 And we're back, Matt. Go ahead and finish your thought.

Speaker 18 The DA's sort of statement that he waived his appellate rights is just, he did it on paper, but it doesn't

Speaker 18 actually mean anything. He can still appeal.
It may be a tougher appellate road. He can still do a direct appeal.
He just has to accuse his defense lawyers of ineffective assistance to counsel.

Speaker 18 I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that. And then, of course, 40 years is an awful long time for them to get an opportunity

Speaker 18 to switch the law. And look, the Menendez brothers got Life Without Possibility Parole in California, and we know what just happened there.

Speaker 18 There have been significant legislative actions that allow people with Life Without Possibility parole sentences in in other states to now get them so that was uh he stood up he said that it sounded awful good however um you know there's a lot more to it and i hope it's the end i hope him going away and the door closing and all that stuff is is the end but it legally it's really not

Speaker 17 tell can i add let me add something to that if i can i'm glad that um We're talking about ineffective assistance of counsel.

Speaker 17 This, of course, being a Sixth Amendment right that you you have under the u.s constitution and each state has their own all he would really need to do is say look we had identified four other people and we were prepared to blame them uh at trial as being potential the other the real killer okay but my lawyers talked me out of going forward with the trial even though um i wanted to say that other people uh committed this crime and then you've got that could really happen that would just just to interrupt you for one one quick second that that really could happen because Howard was reporting on this leading up to the trial that Ann Taylor was jumping up and down, seemingly wanting him to plead this out.

Speaker 14 And Kohlberger, there was talk about whether she'd have to like try to get him declared incompetent or do something with around his alleged autism to try to force this plea deal on him.

Speaker 14 Keep going, Phil.

Speaker 17 Yeah, so

Speaker 17 he can raise this issue on collateral attack on what we call a habeas kind of an appeal.

Speaker 17 And he's not essentially, I think, breaching the plea deal because he's not necessarily appealing any of the pretrial rulings made in the case.

Speaker 17 He's saying that my rights were violated today during this sentencing process because my lawyers didn't do their job.

Speaker 17 Now, that's not saying, I'm not saying that's the case necessarily, but that's the argument that could be made. So

Speaker 17 for the prosecutor to sit there and say for everybody's benefit, I guess, that there's just not going to be any appeal was a little bit disingenuous.

Speaker 17 And it certainly doesn't reflect the law that exists in the United States, as was correctly pointed out.

Speaker 17 And it also, you know, just to wrap up this point, if you're going to file a motion saying to the judge, look, we want to blame three or four or five other people for this and we've got some evidence of it.

Speaker 17 You better have really, really good evidence because when

Speaker 17 that motion fails and then you're on the eve of trial and your client figures out, okay, the limelight is over.

Speaker 17 it's time to put up or shut up and we're at the foot of the cross you looked like a fool for bringing this motion saying we've got evidence that four or five other people may have been the guilty party here uh and then you just kind of immediately switch gear to admit under oath that no uh this individual client did in fact commit this crime exactly as alleged so i'm like why do you even try to go down that road unless you've got really really solid evidence of it i think

Speaker 19 I added that. I'm sorry.

Speaker 15 I think it's fun to say you look like a fool. I mean, that's something pernicious and malicious.
They put four names into that document.

Speaker 15 The document and the motion, it's been redacted, but someday this might very well come out.

Speaker 15 Those four people will be branded as the life as possible suspects, possible killers, and yet the judge said there's no evidence. That was a very

Speaker 15 pernicious act on the part of Ann Taylor. I think it's unforgivable.

Speaker 14 Well, let me add to that, just one other point. You heard a lot of people reference it.
The DA referenced it. The judge referenced it.
Some of the family members mentioned the media attention.

Speaker 14 And in this very interesting Amazon Prime documentary on this case that just hit,

Speaker 14 forgive me, I can't remember the name of it. It's like the, it's about the Idaho 4,

Speaker 14 but it's on Amazon Prime right now.

Speaker 14 One Night in Idaho, thank you, my team.

Speaker 14 They talk a lot about the online crime sleuth community and how rabid they've been.

Speaker 14 And frankly, irresponsible some have really been in reporting on this case and pointing the finger at anyone and everyone and sort of dragging innocent young men who are just standing there into this case as alleged suspects and terrorizing, you know, the other roommates and some of the friends.

Speaker 14 And like the one guy who was just the sober driver at the local fraternity where Ethan Chapins,

Speaker 14 he was, I think he was a member there. His name was dragged through the mud and so on.
So they

Speaker 14 did make a point about, you know, all those media people and how irresponsible they were. I mean, I think that's a legitimate point.

Speaker 14 I can't remember why I'm raising this, but, oh, that's why, that's why, because

Speaker 14 now

Speaker 14 Ann Taylor, you know, she puts in a document these four other names that eventually is going to go out there.

Speaker 14 And what do you think that online community, the ones who are irresponsible, they're not all, is going to do with those names?

Speaker 14 I literally am still getting texts from random people, some I know, some I know, rejecting this, telling me he either didn't do it or he didn't do it alone.

Speaker 14 I mean, these are smart people who just aren't accepting this because of Ann Taylor. You're right, Howard.

Speaker 14 Those four people are about to get their names dragged through the mud even more because she irresponsibly threw them out there. Go ahead, Howard, and then I'll go to you, Matt.

Speaker 15 Well, I mean, as a journalist, you don't really move on. I mean, I listened to the proceedings today and I heard one thing, one thing that I never heard before, that there was a weapon used on Kelly.

Speaker 15 Now,

Speaker 14 two weapons?

Speaker 15 Well, the knife, and then he had something else in his hand, I think the sister said.

Speaker 14 She said, what was the second part?

Speaker 15 We heard testimony about a vacuum cleaner. Dylan has said that a vacuum cleaner, she thought she saw a vacuum cleaner in his hand.
Did he bring a vacuum cleaner in?

Speaker 15 Did he hit her with a vacuum cleaner, savagely beat her? The father said her cheekbones were broken.

Speaker 15 Is that how he's able to get out without leaving a trail? These are questions I, as a journalist, and I think the Gonzales family, too, wanted answers.

Speaker 15 And I don't know if we should be moving on after three years and a half years.

Speaker 14 Before I toss it to you, Matt, I do want to play a soundbite on that. Steve Gonzalez spoke to Ashley Banfield and did fill in some of the details around what he'd been told about Kaylee's murder.

Speaker 14 She was on the top floor with Maddie Mogan, believed to be the main target of the attack. Here it is, Satwan.

Speaker 57 People so angry at what was happening in that courtroom that they would literally pick up their phone and call us and say, this is what's on Brian's phone. This is what he was searching.

Speaker 57 This individual was sexually motivated. I don't care what Thompson said.

Speaker 14 Coming out of hearings, there would be people who would call you and say, I don't like what's happening in that courtroom.

Speaker 9 I know what's on his phone.

Speaker 14 I know. What did you learn from those phone calls without divulging who it was who called?

Speaker 57 Just weird, weird porn fetishes, but two of the fetishes were in that room. Drunk passed out girls and gagging girls.
And those are two things that were part of that crime scene. So for

Speaker 57 Thompson to say that there was no sexual assault. Of course there wasn't.

Speaker 42 He didn't have enough time. Somebody came up there.

Speaker 14 That was additional color. But he also did talk about how it was clear Kaylee had been beaten.
I think that he said her nose had been broken.

Speaker 14 So clearly there had been been some sort of a fight, some sort of an altercation. Go ahead, Matt.

Speaker 18 Well, I think that that hits on exactly what we were discussing last time is

Speaker 18 the use of that word, that there's no sexual component. I think that that was really inappropriate by the DA because you can't get into Cobriger's head.

Speaker 18 And we've heard those rumors consistently that Mr. Gonzalvez was just talking about there, that there were porn searches that were found on the computers and phones.

Speaker 18 And I can tell you, Megan, four years in sexual assault and 17 and homicide, unless they get rid of the computers, there's always porn.

Speaker 18 There's always something on there, especially when you're dealing with people that are motivated by sexual predation.

Speaker 18 So I was, I think that was a very poor choice of words by Thompson in the original plea. He didn't repeat that again today.

Speaker 18 But look, one of the things that he did say, you know, he talked about we didn't, we didn't reduce. we didn't reduce the sentences what did he say he said um

Speaker 18 uh no bargaining about reduced sentences it's like dude, you gave him the biggest reduced sentence. You came off death.

Speaker 18 I mean,

Speaker 18 I don't know what he was talking about there, unless he's referring to the specific counts. And sorry, again, I don't want to be overly critical here, but that's called pleading to the sheet.

Speaker 18 That's something that happens in every courtroom every day by prosecutors. There's nothing heroic about that.

Speaker 18 It's like, you want us to come off the biggest potential sentence in a state that might actually execute him? Of course he's going to plead to the sheet.

Speaker 18 So that I thought was really, that was designed.

Speaker 18 That language, I think, was designed for the general public because there's a lot of lawyers who practice criminal law, I guarantee across America that were kind of rolling their eyes a little bit on that.

Speaker 18 And again, guys got a tough job. There are advantages certainly to taking a plea.
My Rodney O'Calla case, like we talked about, I did the third version of that. It was reversed twice.

Speaker 18 He was convicted twice, sentenced to death twice. I did the third trial, and it was brutal on the families.
All of that stuff is real. But again, we talked about this.

Speaker 18 I want to know what changed behind the scenes other than just Koberger coming and want to make a deal and it sounds like nothing.

Speaker 14 That's it. And Bill Thompson not wanted to try the case.
I did find the comment that Steve Gonsalves made to People Magazine.

Speaker 14 Well, sorry, People Magazine wrote up an interview he gave to the Today Show where he said he and Christy Gonsalves

Speaker 14 said the coroner gave the parents a breakdown of the wounds 21-year-old Kaylee suffered.

Speaker 14 Quote, she had definitely been stabbed multiple times, and they kind of described it as a drowning that can occur. But she did say gagging.
Kohlberger struck her in the face.

Speaker 14 Christy Gonsalves added, Kaylee had a broken nose, septile hematomas, asphyxial injuries, and defense wounds on her arms. She was stabbed many, many times.
How many? We don't know.

Speaker 14 And that's where you come in, Howard, where you're saying Steve Gonsalves asked you if you could find out that he's relying on you.

Speaker 15 They're still trying to find things out, and today they revealed for the first time, at least, that there was perhaps something else in the hands that they used to beat, Kayleigh.

Speaker 15 I'd like to hear more about that, but instead, we've been told it's time to move on. I think he's

Speaker 11 thinking.

Speaker 14 Here's the sister, Olivia, in a series of questions she posed to Brian Kohlberger directly raising some of these points.

Speaker 58 Some of these might be familiar, so sit up straight when I talk to you.

Speaker 58 How was your life right before you murdered my sisters?

Speaker 58 Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your apartment? Please detail what you are thinking and feeling at this time.

Speaker 58 Why did you choose my sisters?

Speaker 58 Before making your move, did you approach my sisters? Detail what you were thinking and feeling.

Speaker 35 Before leaving their home, is there anything else you did?

Speaker 58 Where is the murder weapon, the clothes you wore that night?

Speaker 58 What did you bring into the house with you?

Speaker 58 What was the second weapon you used on Kaylee?

Speaker 58 What were Kaylee's last words? If you were really smart, do you think you'd be here right now?

Speaker 58 What's it like needing this much attention just to feel real?

Speaker 11 Ugh.

Speaker 14 I mean, as someone who's put these psychopaths in jail, Matt, how do you think that made him feel?

Speaker 18 Well, look, every family member, Megan, winds up landing, anybody that goes through something like this, they initially land somewhere on a spectrum between just supreme grief and supreme anger.

Speaker 18 And a lot of them will sort of change on that scale over the course of the proceedings and the course of time.

Speaker 18 I actually really... thought that was incredibly powerful for her to do that.

Speaker 18 And I think that's the purpose of a victim impact statement, because that young woman, Olivia, will be able to go through the rest of her life, her rest of her life knowing that he had to sit there and listen.

Speaker 18 And again, when we're talking about the psychopath, they have no capacity for empathy, but their narcissism is off the charts. So to have,

Speaker 18 as you pointed out, Megan, a very attractive young woman, Olivia,

Speaker 18 speak to him like that in a setting where he had to sit and listen to him, that stung because that will impact his sense of grandiosity. And she really just laid him, laid him low.
I mean, I was

Speaker 18 cheering for her as she was doing that, taking notes. That was awesome.

Speaker 18 And I think that if there's anything when he gets on that bus to go to whatever prison they send him to that's going to be echoing around in his mind, it's going to be the words of Olivia Gonzalez.

Speaker 14 I have to say, I thought it was a courageous act, too, because... He is a quadruple murderer.

Speaker 14 And I mean, I just continue to think back to his first question when he got arrested, arrested, which was, is anyone else in custody?

Speaker 14 And so, you know, there is at least a question mark lingering over the case about whether somebody helped him in some way.

Speaker 14 And I just thought that's very brave of her to be so provocative and antagonistic toward who we know is a man who's a quadruple murderer and has zero empathy. And she's a young woman.
I mean,

Speaker 14 the piece of it.

Speaker 14 Her testimonial is the one that everybody's going to remember. It was extraordinary.
But it was important also to have the full panoply of emotion filled because we also saw

Speaker 14 what this

Speaker 14 thing

Speaker 14 did to, for example, Dylan Mortensen. I mean, and Dylan's so interesting.
She's one of the two surviving roommates. There was Bethany, who was in the basement, who didn't hear a thing.

Speaker 14 And then there was Dylan. And Dylan showed up and...
spoke her statement herself. And she's been at the center of the storm since these murders happened because she saw him.

Speaker 14 He got into that house, we believe around 4, 12 a.m. He left within 12 to 18 minutes at most later.

Speaker 14 And he, upon leaving, passed Dylan Mortensen in the hallway. She didn't know what she was seeing.

Speaker 14 She's the one who described him as wearing some sort of like a balaclava or a mask with bushy eyebrows.

Speaker 14 Howard pointing out she later, Vicki Ward reported that she believed Dylan did. He was holding some sort of a vacuum cleaner upon exiting.
We've never heard her.

Speaker 14 We've never, she hasn't given an interview. We haven't heard anything from her.
She shows up today, and that woman's anguish was palpable.

Speaker 14 It was a reminder that he took four lives, but in some ways he ruined far more than four. I'm just going to play a sound bite from her and then you can take it, Phil.

Speaker 14 Here's part of the Dylan Mortensen impact statement montage. It's SAT 21.

Speaker 51 My nervous system never got the message that it is over, and it won't let me forget what he did to them. He is a hollow vessel, something less than human.

Speaker 51 A body without empathy, without remorse.

Speaker 51 He chose destruction.

Speaker 51 He chose evil. He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice.

Speaker 51 He will never take the memories I had with them.

Speaker 51 He will never erase the love we shared, the laughs we had, or the way they made me feel seen and whole. Those things are mine.
They are sacred, and he will never touch them.

Speaker 14 Oh, both Boshe and the other roommate fell testifying that for a year after this happened, they had to sleep in the bed with their parents.

Speaker 18 You know,

Speaker 17 to take someone's life, obviously, is one of the worst things that you could ever do to someone.

Speaker 17 But I think you could make the argument that doing to her what Koberger did to her may be even worse because the people who have passed away, they're not hurting or suffering in the physical sense anymore, but she is and she's got to carry that with her for the rest of her natural life.

Speaker 17 And those of us who are parents, like in my case of a soon-to-be college-age child, you know, this is the worst nightmare for any parent. You want what's best for your family.

Speaker 17 You want what's best for your kids. You want your kids to go out into the world and succeed and to

Speaker 17 be happy. And that's the most important thing.

Speaker 17 You want your kids to be happy, but there's no amount of counseling or no therapy that can ever help undo what Koberger did to her and can make her happy.

Speaker 17 And so, you know, that's this all goes back to part of the problem that I have with this plea deal in the first place.

Speaker 17 We're just left with so many questions that might help some of these people move forward in at least maybe a little bit more satisfactory fashion.

Speaker 17 The prosecutor had every reason, I think, to go forward with the trial.

Speaker 17 Not all the questions would have been answered, but a lot of them would. We would not be talking

Speaker 14 about

Speaker 17 how many stab wounds or was he carrying a vacuum cleaner?

Speaker 17 We would know the answers to a lot of this if there had been a trial. And maybe in the weeks and months and years to come,

Speaker 17 maybe the families will be provided with the evidence that they didn't see at the trial that didn't happen.

Speaker 17 And maybe they'll be able to provide it to the public. Maybe journalists will be able to get their hands on some of this stuff now that the gag order has been released.

Speaker 17 But remember, it's still all in the possession, custody, and control of the prosecution.

Speaker 17 And it's really going to be up to them

Speaker 17 how to get this information. out into the public, if they're willing to do it at all.

Speaker 17 And I think they probably have some things that they just to protect themselves, they don't want the public to find out about.

Speaker 17 I think that there was some

Speaker 17 hesitancy by the prosecution. I'll just, that's the nicest word I can think of right now, some hesitancy to move forward with the trial.

Speaker 17 I don't know if it's they didn't feel they were capable or they were somehow scared of going to trial,

Speaker 17 but they certainly seemed to jump on Koberger's. Koberger's really the one that made the offer.
Say, look, I'll plead guilty if you take death off the table.

Speaker 17 And it's almost like Koberger's team is making the plea offer and the prosecutor accepting his term.

Speaker 11 And so, yeah, they act like the prosecution was relieved quickly.

Speaker 17 Yeah, they act like they're the ones that made some kind of plea deal. I see it the other way around.
I see Koberger made the plea deal and the prosecutor accepted that.

Speaker 14 You're so right. Go ahead, Howard.

Speaker 15 That's exactly right. I mean, and for the prosecution, for Bill Thompson to talk about, we will move on.
The door is closed. The judge says that.
Well, we all heard Dylan Morton's statements.

Speaker 15 No one is moving on. This is going to linger forever.
And the only thing that's going to happen is the possibility of getting answers to specific questions.

Speaker 15 Well, that's going to be a lot harder now.

Speaker 15 I think

Speaker 15 the families and the citizens of Idaho and the public have been

Speaker 15 disserved. by what was done in the courtroom today.

Speaker 14 Now was the time. You know, it's creepy.

Speaker 14 In the movie that I keep referencing one night in Idaho, they have a very interesting segment with the women who ran one of these public chat groups about the murders.

Speaker 14 These two women run multiple true crime blogs, and they added this one after the murders. This was the forum into which Papa Roger appeared, posting his theories about the crime.

Speaker 14 It's clearly Brian Kohlberger. And they walk you through his posts, which really kind of gave up the game.

Speaker 14 First of all, the photo, like the sort of icon that's used to represent Papa Roger looks just like Brian Kohlberger. I mean, identical.

Speaker 14 And second of all, his posts know way more than any civilian who didn't commit this crime should have known long prior to the release of that police affidavit, which had the details of the crime.

Speaker 14 I mean, he was already speculating about he knew it was a knife.

Speaker 14 He speculated that they found the knife sheath. He asked some of those same weird questions that he asked in that questionnaire.

Speaker 14 He wanted to know what do you think was in the mind of the killer when he walked into the room.

Speaker 14 They were very, like, it was more than I'd ever heard from the Papa Roger account as these two women who ran it went through his questioning.

Speaker 14 And then as soon as Brian Kohlberger was arrested, dried up. Papa Roger never posted again, which tells me he wants attention.
He loves reveling in the crime, Matt.

Speaker 14 He seems to have been getting off on it because at that point, he was getting away with the crime.

Speaker 14 So why would a killer like this who had, as of then, gotten away with it, be so provocative to be making these posts in a public online crime forum?

Speaker 18 Well, that goes back to Jack the Ripper, right, Megan? It's like there was, he would, that person wrote to the police.

Speaker 18 And they, they think that those letters came from the actual killer. We saw that in the Zodiac Killer, too.

Speaker 18 That's, that speaks to the narcissism, the arrogance, and the grandiosity of the great American psychopath, or even, you know, outside of America, it's the, it's the mindset of these guys. And

Speaker 14 I'm thinking of the thumbs up photo after the murders, Matt. You know, as you say, the grandiosity, it's his selfie with the thumbs up.
Like, yeah, he's celebrating himself. Keep going.

Speaker 18 Yeah, it looks like a vampire in that too. And look, Megan, that photo, there's a very common thing, and it comes from a good place, I think, with most people.

Speaker 18 But when they're considering death versus life in prison, one of the things you hear very commonly is people go, well, the worst thing I can imagine is if I was in a cell and I had to think about what I did every single day.

Speaker 18 That's imposing humanity onto the mind of the psychopath. They don't think that way.
It's a mistake.

Speaker 18 It comes from, it's almost like psychological projection. We think about ourselves and we think about how we have the capacity for guilt.
They don't think that way.

Speaker 18 And the arrogance of posting stuff to an online chat room, I mean, it's just, it's a modern version of the same thing. And

Speaker 18 these guys,

Speaker 18 I hate to say it, but they don't, they just don't experience remorse like other people. And that's why I loved, I really love the comments of Olivia today, because that kind of stuff is biting.

Speaker 18 That kind of stuff.

Speaker 14 Well, Matt, that was the other thing she got to. She said, so Jack the Ripper was never caught, but Brian Kohlberger was caught and she got on him like, how are you so stupid?

Speaker 14 Like mockingly, like, did you really think you're going to be able to cover up your your Amazon purchase of the knife by using a gift card?

Speaker 14 It was so diminishing.

Speaker 18 Look, I love that.

Speaker 18 I love that. I loved her.
You're basic. You're nothing.
You're, she went, she read everything that she could get her hands on, written by Brian Koberger.

Speaker 18 That is a very intelligent woman who wanted, she wanted to sting him, and she did. I guarantee that stuff hurt today.

Speaker 14 Okay, now, speaking of stinging,

Speaker 14 there, speaking of to my friend Ashley Banfield, she had on a guy. His name is Larry Levine, and he's a former federal inmate and prison consultant.

Speaker 14 And he's literally written the book that people read when they get sentenced to prison on like how to deal with prison.

Speaker 14 So she had him on not long ago and asked him some questions about what's going to happen now to Brian Kohlberger.

Speaker 14 This is after understanding he was pleading guilty. And listen here to SOT 16.

Speaker 59 Remember that these people in there, none of them, well, I shouldn't say none of them, a great great deal of them are not mentally stable anyway. So that's highly possible.

Speaker 59 Maybe somebody will shive him or something. That is part of jailhouse justice.
I've seen people get stuck before. I've been in three different prison riots.
I've seen all this shit.

Speaker 59 But I predict within a year or less that he's either going to be dead or he's going to be physically injured in some way.

Speaker 59 Then they'll transport him, take him to a real hospital, and they'll let him stay there and get well and all this bullshit. Finally, they'll move him back over to the prison, back to Boise,

Speaker 59 and he'll be in protective custody for the rest of his life because they won't be able to put him in general population.

Speaker 14 Now, Matt, you've been saying he's going to go to special custody right away. Do we know that?

Speaker 18 I guarantee they're going to put him in, it's called PC, or they're going to make him a total separate total separation. That's

Speaker 18 guaranteed. he's been in that in that status almost certainly the entire time since his arrest because of the notoriety of the case.
It'll only increase today.

Speaker 18 But, you know, what a sad statement of the American system of justice when we're all here and we are hoping that,

Speaker 18 not that we're hoping for it, but that people are calling for prisoners. Like we need Dirtback teammates to achieve justice in a case like this.

Speaker 18 It's just, it speaks to that unsatisfied feeling you were talking about earlier.

Speaker 18 I think that a lot of people across America are cheering for dirtbag prisoners to carry out what the American justice system couldn't. And back to Phillip's point,

Speaker 18 you know,

Speaker 18 the idea that the DA kind of blinked on this, that he accepted Koberger's terms. And I just don't see any other way of looking at it, because it sounds like that is exactly what happened.

Speaker 15 Go ahead, Philip. Let me just disagree a little bit.
I think the prison system has a responsibility to protect him.

Speaker 15 I think that that should be enforced, and it would be

Speaker 15 an American tragedy if he were killed in prison. I think that's not the way America works.

Speaker 11 Howard,

Speaker 19 I don't disagree with you.

Speaker 11 He's my dear liberal friend.

Speaker 18 I'm not calling for it.

Speaker 14 Well, I certainly wouldn't be crying any tears. I would not cry one tear to hear.
I actually would like to see him suffer for a little while before they take care of him, but I don't know.

Speaker 14 In this matter, I feel like those prisoners, those fellow prisoners to him are allies. I'm willing to look the other way.
I just, he shouldn't continue breathing our air.

Speaker 14 I don't really care about the explanation at this point, Phil. I want him gone.
I feel like the state fell down on the job. If prison justice has to do it,

Speaker 17 nobody cried when Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison. I mean, things like that.
But

Speaker 17 the state does have a legal obligation to at least do their best to protect those in their custody, such as prisoners.

Speaker 17 They don't always do such a good job at it and you know these why are they letting men in women's prisons yeah well you never know what's going to happen uh but the thing that about his being in custody for life is look over time whether it's a year, two years, three years from now, over time,

Speaker 17 the guard will let will get let down. He's going to become more in the rearview mirror and not so much of, you know, today's prisoner celebrity kind of thing.

Speaker 17 And so over time, he's going to be exposed to many different opportunities for things to happen, either at the hands of other third parties or at the hands of himself.

Speaker 17 And you just, you just never know. He's not going to be well liked by other prisoners.

Speaker 17 He's going to be in that category of inmates that really do need to be looking over their shoulder for their own safety. And he better hope for his sake that he is in protective custody.

Speaker 17 And he better hope that it's.

Speaker 17 sufficient protective custody and that there's no gaps in it because he's going to be universally hated by the rank and file inmate people that are in there for, you know, let's just maybe theft offenses,

Speaker 17 property crimes, not necessarily, you know, limited to just violent prisoners. He's going to be exposed potentially to.

Speaker 17 all different manner of people that are just in there for short sentences and some of them are in there for life. And some people in prison have nothing to lose either.

Speaker 17 And so he's got a lot of things that he needs to be concerned about. It's a long way from that selfie that we saw where it's just disgusting to me because it's right after apparently the murders.

Speaker 17 It looks like he's standing in front of a shower or maybe he's just cleaned himself up and he's giving this thumbs up like, hey, I'm very proud of myself. I'm proud of that I just achieved my mission.

Speaker 17 I think he was trying to duplicate, you know, maybe a Jeff, Ted Bundy or some other serial killer.

Speaker 17 killer and he's very proud of himself in that picture right there but uh he's got a a different road in front of him moving forward, Megan. He's got a lot to be concerned about.

Speaker 14 Here's a little bit more from this Larry Levine, who's got some interesting takes on it. All right.

Speaker 14 Here is Juan Sat 19.

Speaker 14 I remember something you once told me

Speaker 14 that almost everybody cries.

Speaker 15 They do.

Speaker 13 Because the whole realization has hit them.

Speaker 59 People lay awake and they can't sleep. And every little fucking noise and the pipes and the wall, everything freaks them out.
And then, you know, this is an old prison in Idaho.

Speaker 59 Maybe there's rats in the walls and maybe he'll get a little pet or something. Then he's going to hear the other inmates.
They're going to be assholes banging on the wall. They will.

Speaker 59 They're going to bang on the wall. They're going to fuck with him.
And they're going to tell him they're going to kill him. It doesn't matter how tough you are.

Speaker 59 And he's got no hope. And that's what a lot of people, they live to see their families.
They know they're all getting out.

Speaker 59 So a person serving a life sentence, their first night in there, it just completely fucks with their head.

Speaker 15 You know, maybe he'll try to kill himself.

Speaker 14 I'm starting to feel better. I don't know.
Howard,

Speaker 14 wasn't he already asking when he got arrested for like vegan?

Speaker 14 vegan menu and like the proper cooking utensils that hadn't touched meat. It was kind of crazy when he first got arrested memory surgery.

Speaker 15 Yes, and he was also asking if he could have a coffee date with the officer who arrested him. I mean he was sort of cut off from reality.
He thinks he thought this is all somehow going to work out.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 11 And he's about to learn the hard way.

Speaker 15 Will he be able to have people interview him in prison? Will actually suppose Katherine Ramson wanted to visit him. Would she be allowed? I'm not sure that's even allowed in maximum custody.

Speaker 14 Well, here's what Brian Enton of of News Nation tweeted out. He posted, Kohlberger will likely have his own tablet in prison,

Speaker 14 like an iPad, with music, email, and movies in his prison cell. Also, he can buy his own TV to keep in his cell.

Speaker 14 This is why people favor the death penalty because we don't want to see them Phil sitting there watching probably

Speaker 14 one night in Idaho, reliving it for good time's sake in his case, as opposed to standing in front of the firing squad.

Speaker 17 Yeah, he's going to be re-watching all his court appearances and reliving his glory days.

Speaker 17 But look, here's a question that I've got, maybe for the rest of you, Megan, and the rest of the panel, and for those watching.

Speaker 17 Is there a possibility now that President Trump has weighed in on this case that maybe the federal government brings some charges? Because, you know, it's possible. There's concurrent jurisdiction.

Speaker 17 There's no such thing as double jeopardy vis-a-vis the federal and the state system.

Speaker 17 And if the Justice Department were to try to pick up this case, the federal death penalty could potentially be on the table and he could have a whole new set of problems to be dealing with.

Speaker 17 So look, this today, this sentencing hearing is over. This Idaho case is over, but this saga is not over.
And I just wonder if there's not going to be some

Speaker 17 to say thought given at the federal level to bring in some kind of federal charges, because in the federal system, the death penalty is real, it applies, and the Justice Department knows how to use it.

Speaker 14 Here was the president's tweet just, I think, two days ago.

Speaker 14 Brian Kohlberger, who was responsible in Idaho for the deaths of four wonderful young souls, has made a plea bargain deal in order to avoid the death penalty.

Speaker 14 These were vicious murders with so many questions left unanswered. While life imprisonment is tough, it's certainly better than receiving the death penalty.

Speaker 14 But before sentencing, I hope the judge makes Kohlberger at a minimum explain why he did these horrible murders. There are no explanations.
There is no nothing.

Speaker 14 People were shocked that he was able to plea bargain, but the judge should make him explain what happened. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Speaker 14 The judge pointing out today he didn't have that ability, but Matt, you pointed out last time we were together, the DA did. I'll give you the floor in one second.
I want to say this.

Speaker 14 My information is that thanks to Doge, the DOJ right now is severely undermanned.

Speaker 14 Doge is not like USAID, where you cancel the grant and you cancel the person overseeing it and you're fine. When you fire something like 240 lawyers from DOJ, the cases they were on do not go away.

Speaker 14 They now get dumped on other lawyers who are at DOJ. So my info over there is that a lot of lawyers are really stretched thin.
They need to hire good lawyers over there.

Speaker 14 Hello, my friends on screen left.

Speaker 14 Phil, I know you're busy with the new MK Media show, but you should do it. You too, Matt.
You recently left the prosecutor's office. anyway.

Speaker 14 I don't think they have the manpower to go after a case that's already wrapped up, but your thoughts on it, Matt?

Speaker 18 Well, they could. They certainly could.
We're talking about the resources of the federal government. The problem is, would they? And then what effect would that ultimately have? And Philip's right.

Speaker 18 I don't know if it's called dual jurisdiction. I don't know if there is a if there necessarily is a federal

Speaker 18 way into this. It wasn't on a military base.
I don't know if there'd be any federal jurisdiction because there's a college campus. campus.

Speaker 18 I don't know if they would necessarily have jurisdiction, but the problem there, Megan,

Speaker 18 is we just saw the midnight pardons and commutations by Joe Biden where I think

Speaker 18 they

Speaker 18 commuted

Speaker 18 37 of 42 federal death penalty cases, I think was the was the number.

Speaker 18 The vast majority on his way out the door of federal death penalty sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Speaker 18 So even if we did get one federally, you know, I mean, Megan, you cover this, you cover national politics.

Speaker 18 You know, that's a 40 years is a long time for there to be a president, as we almost saw last time, that's hostile to the death penalty, hostile to lifestyle parole, who would likely commute that long before it was carried out.

Speaker 14 If I'd like to correct your statement, the auto pen was hostile to the death penalty. And the auto pen

Speaker 19 decided to get rid of it.

Speaker 18 Whoever was turning it on. Right.

Speaker 14 I want to blame the father.

Speaker 49 He went on Amazon.

Speaker 17 He went on Amazon to make purchases. And so I think there could be a federal hook here.
And he left the state of Idaho in furtherance of

Speaker 17 desires to cover up.

Speaker 15 I think you're looking at it in a too legalistic way.

Speaker 15 I think if the president believes a great number of the American people still want answers, I think he will somehow move things so that we'll be... things will move forward in the courts.
I think

Speaker 18 Philip just hit the nail on the head.

Speaker 18 Sorry, I didn't mean to step on you howard uh he phillip's absolutely right he he crossed state lines that's the hook they could do it if they want that does give the feds jurisdiction if they wanted to pursue death um i don't know how the families would feel about going through that entire process but they would be walking with the backstop it's a very interesting idea

Speaker 14 wow okay so that we possibly we've plowed new ground here. I wanted to play this just because

Speaker 14 we listened to this whole thing together and we heard from Maddie's family, we heard from Kaylee's family, we heard from Zanna's family, but we heard nothing from Ethan Chapin's family.

Speaker 14 And there was a reason for that. His parents did cooperate with the One Night in Idaho documentary.
His mother, who I mentioned earlier, Stacey, an incredible woman.

Speaker 14 I mean, I've never met her, but boy, I was very impressed by her. And here's what she said in episode three of that four-episode series, SAT-11.

Speaker 28 Sitting in a courtroom.

Speaker 35 This doesn't feel red.

Speaker 19 Why would I go sit in a courtroom with that person?

Speaker 34 Have you attended any of the hearings? No.

Speaker 14 No, I will not. We won't.

Speaker 60 We won't attend any of the hearings.

Speaker 60 What's the purpose?

Speaker 18 Definitely not the trial.

Speaker 14 No. Nope.

Speaker 61 I don't have a need to go look them in the eyes or

Speaker 11 I don't.

Speaker 61 It is what it is.

Speaker 60 We cannot change the outcome on this thing.

Speaker 19 We cannot bring anything back.

Speaker 14 She's... She's certainly right about that.
She's got a very strong head on her shoulders. Maddie's mom, Karen,

Speaker 14 is a real tear jerker in this series because she looks just like her daughter, first of all. And second of all,

Speaker 14 she talks about how she raised Maddie and how,

Speaker 14 you know, when Maddie cried in the crib, she went and got her. Like she...
She was always like sort of the, and I mean this sweetly, like the sucker of a mom. Like, I can't take it.

Speaker 14 I can't take her upset. You know, life's too short.
I need to help her with her distress. And by all accounts, Maddie turned out amazingly and turned into just an absolutely wonderful young woman.

Speaker 14 And so you can see this mother's just acute pain talking about getting the news and dealing with the news.

Speaker 14 And here's just a bit of her talking about that yellow sweatshirt that's in that photo of the six of them, the very photo that the sentencing proceeding today ended on.

Speaker 14 And the photo we've come to know so well that really encapsulates their friendship and the love and the vibrance. And here's Maddie's mom, Karen, talking about it.

Speaker 11 Top 12.

Speaker 14 We didn't honestly get a lot back.

Speaker 27 Just to be.

Speaker 27 Maybe you didn't.

Speaker 61 You didn't want them back, or you just wasn't able to come back.

Speaker 61 So the stuff that was able to come back, I went through and like, oh, some of this is silly, some of this is very sentimental. Like, I still have the yellow sweater that she was wearing that day.

Speaker 61 The sleeves are still rolled up.

Speaker 61 so i found this sweatshirt when we went down it was the first family weekend and maddie really wanted this sweatshirt and

Speaker 61 it wasn't her size we couldn't find it and i found it in like a total different place and when i found it i was like scott look we found the sweater and then

Speaker 61 i'm on video with her and she's cutting it

Speaker 61 I'm like, we were on FaceTime.

Speaker 14 I'm like, what are you doing?

Speaker 61 She's like, this is how everything is worn, Mom.

Speaker 30 I'm like, okay, I got to get used to this.

Speaker 11 I got to let it be.

Speaker 61 But yes,

Speaker 20 super glad we got that back.

Speaker 14 Oh, my God, guys. You look at it.

Speaker 14 There's this sweatshirt with no girl in it. And no girl will ever be in it named Kaylee Gonsalves because of what that monster did.
Those moments really bring it back to what this case is all about.

Speaker 14 Those four wonderful lives lost for no reason. I don't know, my own takeaway

Speaker 14 on this story and this crime is

Speaker 14 so basic, but it's hug your kids, hug your loved ones. Remember that no tomorrow is promised.
Don't assume you have the time. You might not.

Speaker 14 You have to tell everybody you love that you love them. You have to tell the friends that you have, that you value them.

Speaker 14 You have to go outside and look at the sky or look at the ocean and think, I'm here on borrowed time. I'm a renter, not an owner.

Speaker 14 i have to treat the things around me and the people around me respectfully like a like a renter should and make sure make sure that you're connected you know that you're not spending too much time working and not enough time loving and having experiences with those who mean something to you it's the only comfort we have when something horrific happens and the only comfort those parents have who work close to their kids by all accounts i mean especially In the case of the Chapins and Maddie and Kaylee, I don't know the, I don't know Xana's family as well but my god what a day you guys are i value you truly and sincerely all three of you have helped us get through this case and um especially you howard thank you for everything and um we'll continue it on with many other cases to come thanks guys for being here today

Speaker 17 always a pleasure

Speaker 14 All the best, guys. Wow.
And thanks to all of you for listening. This is a, this is an emotional one.
I wonder how you're feeling. I'd love to know how you're feeling, actually.

Speaker 14 Helps me sometimes to read the emails.

Speaker 14 I don't know, I'm kind of like emotional. It's,

Speaker 14 it's my son's 12th birthday, you know, and you just, they're growing up too fast and they're moving on. They're moving on, you know, to new stages of life where they're a little less dependent on you.

Speaker 14 And that's a beautiful thing and it's a necessary thing. But man, you,

Speaker 14 they're such perspective setters. They're what matters.
That is, in the end, all that matters, you know, and I love my job. As you guys know, I love doing the news.

Speaker 11 But my God, you know, your family, that's they're everything.

Speaker 14 That's everything. So hug your loved ones, hug them dearly and tightly today.

Speaker 14 Happy birthday, Thatcher. And

Speaker 14 we'll all get together tomorrow on a less heavy news day, though things are really breaking today on the Tulsi document, Tulsi Gabbard documents.

Speaker 14 We'll have that covered for you with the fellas from Ruthless, and we'll have some laughs. See you then.

Speaker 14 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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