Justice Served: The Idaho College Murders Pt. 2

0:00Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love crimes of Reddit. A new crime house original with Sabrina, Diana, Roge, and Alexis Linklenter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swab. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a Reddit 2am that starts with, you have to see this. Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow crimes of Reddit on Apple podcasts and Spotify, or subscribe at crimes of Reddit pod on YouTube. This is Crime House. A white car circling the block. A knife sheath. A shoe print. And a killer who'd been hiding in plain sight. Investigators had the pieces, but the full picture was still out of reach.

1:03Welcome to Crime House 24-7. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Twice a day every day we bring you the best, most timely, and gripping cases from across the entire Crime House network, all in one place, right here. And every Friday is justice served, where we follow a case all the way to the evidence, the arrests, and the verdict that finally delivered justice. This week we're reopening the case of the 2022 Idaho College murders. And this case is far from settled. Brian Coburger's trial is actively moving through the courts, with unresolved questions about motive and lingering trauma for the families, meaning every detail of what happened on King Road that November night still matters. Our community exists because of listeners like you. Not even more? Join Crime House Plus for every episode of Crime House 24-7, Add Free. Not only that, but you'll get complete access to an exclusive limited series every month. And early, Add Free access to all Crime House shows and bonus episodes.

2:07Go to CrimeHousePlus.com. Or on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Crime House 24-7 page. Now Carter Roy follows the investigation to its verdict and to the questions that may never be answered. On November 13, 2022, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Gonzalves, Xanarkar Noodle, and Ethan Chapin were found brutally stabbed inside their home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. They were between the ages of 20 and 21, and all students at the University of Idaho. The three girls lived at the property while Ethan, Zamas Boyfriend had been spending the night. Two roommates, Bethany Funk and Dylan Mortensen survived the attack, which occurred just after 4 a.m. Dylan even saw the intruder as he was leaving.

3:07Once police arrived on the scene, hours later, her witness testimony became a focal point of the investigation, and that wasn't the only piece of evidence the authorities had. Another was a suspicious car spotted near the house. A white, Hyundai Alantra, though detective still weren't sure about the year. Footage from the neighbor surveillance cameras caught it circling the area, perhaps casing the house. Then there was the knife sheath found beside Maddie and Kaylee in the upstairs bedroom. A small trace of DNA had been recovered from the button snapped. It didn't match anyone in existing databases, so authorities sent it off for further analysis. They would hold onto it until there was something, or someone to compare the DNA to. The forensic team also uncovered a shoe print outside of Dylan's bedroom door. It had a repeating diamond-shaped pattern, similar to what you'd find in the soul of

4:10a van's type shoe. It was directly in the path Dylan had described the intruder taking as he left the house, so it seemed like it was the killer's footprint. Investigators had a few puzzle pieces to work with, but they couldn't see the big picture yet. They believed that Maddie had been a target. The killer had gone into her room first, where she and Kaylee had fallen asleep together. It wasn't clear if Kaylee was collateral damage, or if the murderer had always planned on killing her as well. The same went for Zanna. It was possible the killer only went after her because she'd come out into the hallway after hearing the commotion upstairs. It would make sense if he had been trying to get rid of witnesses. But it still didn't explain why he targeted Ethan, too. He was asleep in Zanna's bed at the time. No one could make sense of the killer's motives. The victims' family and friends were left shocked and confused, and in the following days

5:16they didn't get any more clarity, not even when the autopsy reports came out. On November 16th, three days after the murders, the medical examiner confirmed that all four had been stabbed multiple times. Some board defensive wounds, which suggested they were awake at the time of the attack and fought back. The others who didn't have defensive wounds were likely asleep when they were killed. There was no evidence of sexual assault, just the stab wounds. These details only deepened the mystery. Clearly the killer had fixated on these particular students. Why? Detectives began canvassing local stores, asking if anyone had recently purchased a knife that would fit the sheath they'd found. They scoured dumpsters near King Road, looking for evidence, but came up empty. Meanwhile the governor of Idaho allocated up to $1 million in state emergency funds to

6:22support the ongoing investigation. By then the crime was national news and the tips were pouring in. Detectives received thousands of calls and emails from across the country, most led nowhere, but investigators tried to follow everyone. Then a tip came in that stood out. On November 29th, 16 days after the murders, a Washington State University police officer called the Moscow PD. He'd been working on the university's Pullman campus just 10 miles west of Moscow when he spotted a white Hyundai Alantra, the same type of car that had been spotted circling King Road. It was registered to a 28 year old PhD student named Brian Coburger, who was studying criminology. The Moscow police ran Coburger's driver's license.

7:22They noticed that his photo matched Dylan's description of the masked man she saw. He had an athletic build, was about 5'10", and had bushy eyebrows. They also discovered that Coburger had recently changed his license plates. He had been pulled over in August while driving a white Hyundai Alantra. At the time, he had Pennsylvania plates which were set to expire on November 30th. He'd got new Washington plates on November 18th, just 5 days after the murders. It could have been a coincidence his plates were set to expire, or it could have been an attempt to cover his tracks. Detectives filed a warrant for Coburger's phone records. They wanted to build a profile and see if he had any connection to the murdered Idaho students. At the same time, though, they continued to chase every credible lead. They didn't want to get tunnel vision until they had clear evidence pointing to the killer.

8:28It was a good strategy, and the problem was they couldn't tell the community about it. If they did, Coburger could get spooked and try to flee or destroy evidence. But as the weeks dragged on, the lack of arrests and information created another issue. The murders hadn't just shocked Moscow. They shocked the entire country, and it seemed like everyone had an opinion about what happened. One tear detectives began trading theories online. First, there was Dylan and Bethany, the surviving roommates. People wondered why they waited so long to call 911. The attacks took place around 4am, but the police weren't notified until nearly noon. Some even accused the girls of being involved. And then there was the guy in the hoodie. Caley and Maddie had stopped at a food truck called the Grub Truck around 1.30am on November

9:3013th. The Grub Truck live streamed their late-night rush, and the video of Caley and Maddie ordering food had gone viral after it was posted on TikTok. The video showed a man in a hoodie speaking to them for a few moments. Soon after the murders, other students recognized the guy. He was a student in a fraternity. People quickly began accusing him of being the murderer. Similarly, the Uber driver who took Caley and Maddie home that night came under suspicion. So did the DoorDash driver who had delivered food to Zana just after 4am, only minutes before her murder. These theories were understandable, but dangerous. Desperate for answers, the public was scrutinizing innocent people who had absolutely no involvement in the case. So on December 12th, almost a month since the murders, the Moscow Police Department released a statement.

10:31The Grub Truck guy, the Uber and DoorDash drivers, Dylan and Bethany, and several other people who had been accused were all cleared of any involvement. The Moscow community was grateful for the clarity, but the relief was short-lived. Citizens wanted to know who did this, and they wanted that person off their streets. Behind the scenes, investigators were getting closer. They had a strong hunch about their suspect, but they needed more evidence to ensure the charges stuck. Publicly, all they said was that they were looking for the driver of a white 2011-2012 or 2013 Hyundai Alantra. They didn't know that the person they were searching for was having his own run-in with the law several states away in Indiana.

11:32Just a few days after the Moscow Police's statement on December 15th, Brian Cobrager and his father were driving home to Pennsylvania for the holidays. The day Cobrager was pulled over twice in Indiana, once by a sheriff's deputy for speeding, and then less than 10 minutes later by a state trooper for following the car in front of him too closely. In both cases, he was let go with a warning. At the time, no law enforcement alerts had been issued linking his vehicle or name to the Moscow investigation, so the Indiana officers had no idea they'd just come face-to-face with a murder suspect. But when the Moscow Police finally got Cobrager's cell phone data a few days later, they found more than enough evidence. Not only did that information point to him being the killer, but it also showed that he'd

12:33been planning this attack for months. A month after the murders of Kaylee Gonzalvez, Madison Mogen, Zannakronodal, and Ethan Chapin, authorities were narrowing in on a suspect. They believed 28-year-old Brian Cobrager was the killer. They just needed hard proof. At the end of December, almost a month and a half after the murders, corporal Brett Payne from the Moscow Police Department finally got a search warrant for Cobrager's cell phone records, and the data was very telling. On the night of the murders, Cobrager's phone had traveled from Pullman, Washington toward Moscow Idaho 10 miles away, but then at 247 AM, it was powered off for roughly two hours. And 448 AM, the phone came back online.

13:37By then, it was heading away from Moscow back toward Pullman. Later that morning, the phone pinged again in Moscow right near the King Road House. It seemed like Cobrager had returned to the scene, maybe to see what was happening, or to retrieve something he'd left behind. Like a knife, sheath. Cobrager's phone had also been in Moscow near the victim's house at least 12 times before the murders. The ping's in the area started back in August, three months earlier. To payne and his fellow investigators, it looked like Cobrager had been casing the house. They still didn't know why that house or why those kids, but it looked like he'd been stalking them for months as the evidence mounted. The FBI quietly began surveilling Cobrager at his family home in Pennsylvania.

14:41On December 27, agents collected trash from outside the residence and managed to find a used Q-tip. They sent it off for DNA testing. When the results came back, they were clear. Whoever left the DNA on the knife sheath at the crime scene was a close relation. They were the biological son of whoever used the Q-tip. In other words, the killer's father had used the Q-tip. It confirmed through the same kind of genetic genealogy that helped catch the Golden State Killer that the DNA on the sheath belonged to Brian Cobrager. At around 3 in the morning, on December 30, 2022, 40 members of the Pennsylvania State Police SWAT teams surrounded the Cobrager family home. It had been more than six weeks since the murders of Kayleigh, Maddie, Zanna, and Ethan.

15:43Brian Cobrager had driven across the country just before Christmas. This white Hyundai Alantra, the same car police had spent weeks tracking, was parked in the driveway outside. The SWAT team blew through the Cobrager's front door. They thought the occupants would all be asleep, but they found 28 year old Cobrager in the kitchen wearing latex gloves. He was methodically sealing his trash into separate zip locks, apart from the rest of the family's garbage. After all, he was a criminology student. He knew his DNA could give him away, but apparently he didn't realize his father's DNA could too. As the SWAT team zipped tied Cobrager's wrists, he started speaking to them as if they were guest lecturers at one of his classes. First, he asked whether anyone else had been arrested.

16:44When he spoke to one of them about being a criminology student, he even suggested they get a coffee after all of this. He was stunningly calm about the arrest and didn't seem to have any remorse or any emotion really. The SWAT officers didn't engage with him. They just put him in the back of a police car and took him down to the station. Cobrager was charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of burglary. Within days, FBI agents began the process of extraditing him back to Idaho to face trial. On January 4, 2023, Cobrager was escorted onto a police aircraft in Pennsylvania. When he landed in Moscow, reporters lined the streets waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Cameras followed his every move. To many, it felt like the story was finally reaching an end.

17:45But the more people learned about Brian Cobrager, the stranger and darker the picture became. Brian Cobrager grew up in the Pocano Mountains of Pennsylvania as a teenager. He was quiet, awkward and often kept to himself. Classmate said he could be unpredictable and sometimes started fights without warning. He also struggled with visual snow, a neurological condition where a person's vision is obscured by scattering dots. It isn't a well-studied condition, but according to some neurologists, it can be debilitating. And there's no direct causation between visual snow and mental illness. But one research team found that people who experienced visual snow also reported high levels of anxiety, depression and depersonalization. This was true for Cobrager. He claimed he developed visual snow around the same time.

18:47He noticed his lack of emotions. When Cobrager was 16, he wrote about feeling detached from reality in an online forum. Like was trapped inside his own body, watching life unfold through a screen. He felt little emotion or remorse and he struggled to connect with anyone at all. It only got worse when he added drugs to the mix. Cobrager started using heroin in high school when he was deeply depressed and suicidal. At some point, it seemed like he got a handle on his visual snow, but the heroin he used didn't stop. His father sent him to rehab more than once until eventually. Cobrager claimed he'd gotten clean. By his mid-20s, Cobrager seemed to have turned things around. He was studying psychology at the sales university, a small Catholic school in Pennsylvania. During that time, he became fascinated with the criminal mind, in particular.

19:52He wanted to understand what made people commit violent acts. He even told a friend that he hoped to work with high profile offenders one day. He earned his bachelor's degree in 2020, then went on to a master's program, also at the sales. As a graduate student, he was known for being meticulous, highly analytical, and deeply focused on methodology and data. He was especially interested in collecting data about violent criminals. For example, in the months before the Idaho murders, he posted a survey on Reddit. He introduced himself as a student investigator working with two professors at the sales. He wanted to find former inmates who would be willing to answer some questions. In the survey, he asked them to describe their, quote, thoughts, emotions, and actions from the beginning to end of the crime commission process.

20:54At the time, it sounded academic, but in hindsight, it read like something else entirely, a step by step guide to committing a crime. Even so, Coburger did so well in his graduate program that one of his professors recommended him for a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University. Coburger was accepted and moved to Pullman in the fall of 2022. The campus was about 10 miles away from the University of Idaho in Moscow. At Washington State, he began pursuing a doctorate in criminology. He also worked as a teacher's assistant, grading papers, and teaching undergraduate courses. Classmates later said he was brilliant, but strange. He didn't go to parties or socialize. He seemed mechanical, like he was observing people rather than engaging with them.

21:56Just days before the murders, Coburger had been unusually animated during a discussion about forensics and how prosecutors used DNA evidence to win convictions, or alternatively how they could lose if there was no DNA left behind. Most have seemed obvious to his peers. Of course, prosecutors needed evidence. That wasn't really a hot take, but in retrospect, it seemed like Coburger was speaking to himself. Because by that point, he'd already been casing the house on King Road. And if he wanted to get away with murder, he had to make sure it went off without a hitch. A few days later, on November 13, 2022, Coburger drove to Moscow in the middle of the nights, and crept into the King Roadhouse around 4 a.m. He fatally stabbed, Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna, and Ethan.

23:00Then he drove back to Pullman, as if nothing had happened. In the days that followed, Coburger continued to go to class and grade papers. The semester came to a close without the police even questioning Coburger. He must have thought he was in the clear. So he drove back home to Pennsylvania for the holidays without a care in the world. He didn't know that FBI agents had started surveilling him, and that by the end of December, they would have enough evidence to arrest him. Five months after Coburger was extradited to Idaho, he appeared in court for his arrangement. When the judge asked for his plea, Coburger stood silent. By law, that meant the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. The four first-degree murder charges made him eligible for the death penalty. But his lawyers would spend the next months fighting to take that off the table.

24:01And as the case made its way through the courts, the focus in Moscow shifted to a different kind of battle for closure. The owner of 1122 King Road, the house where the murders had occurred, donated the rental to the University of Idaho. The school then announced plans to tear it down. Many of people in the community cheered the decision, but not everyone agreed. Taylor González and Zanachronotel's families were adamantly opposed. They argued that tearing it down could destroy one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the case, and they were doing it before a trial date had even been set. The University president Scott Green responded with a statement that read, quote, while we appreciate the emotional connection some family members of the victims may have to this house, it is time for its removal and to allow the collective healing of our community

25:05to continue. It was a bold move to prioritize collective healing over the victims' families' wishes. And despite their protests, the plan went forward. On November 28, 2023, just over a year after the murders, the demolition began. At sunrise, heavy machinery clawed through the walls of the house, tearing it down to its foundation. Less than two hours later, the King Roadhouse was gone. For some, it was a symbol of healing, but for others, it felt like erasing the truth before justice had even been served. The case against Brian Coburger moved slowly through Idaho's courts. In September 2024, nearly two years after the murders, a judge ruled that Coburger's

26:10trial would be moved out of Lotta County, where the crime took place. The local media had been publicizing the case nonstop, and the judge believed Coburger wouldn't get a fair trial, so it was moved to Boise nearly 300 miles away. Courts tend to move slowly, especially in death penalty cases, but this one kept getting delayed. Coburger's trial had originally been scheduled for June 2025, but it was pushed back two months to August. During that time, Coburger's defense team filed motion after motion on his behalf. They challenged the DNA evidence. They asked the court to consider his mental health, and perhaps most importantly, they sought to take the death penalty off the table. Coburger's lawyers revealed that he'd been diagnosed with a form of autism. They argued that pursuing the death penalty would violate a Supreme Court ruling from 2002.

27:11The ban states from executing anyone with an intellectual disability. However, autism is considered a developmental disability, not an intellectual one. Still, Coburger's lawyers tried to argue that his diagnosis should be treated similarly. The judge denied that request. When that didn't work, the defense tried to suppress the DNA evidence. They argued that the genetic genealogy technique used to match Coburger's father's DNA to the knife sheath had been unconstitutional. The judge denied that too. The evidence would stand. The back and forth seemed never ending, but then just weeks before the long-awaited trial, the proceeding suddenly went into hyperspeed. One return for dropping the death penalty, Coburger agreed to plead guilty. The plea deal wasn't entirely unexpected. It was no secret that Coburger wanted to avoid the death penalty.

28:16Prosecutors said even met privately with victims' families to prepare them for the decision, and they believed it was the surest path to justice, a way to guarantee Coburger would never walk free again. Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin's families supported the idea, but Kayleigh Gonzalves' family felt blindsided. Mostly because they still didn't know why Coburger had done what he did. They needed that information to make sense of their daughter's death and find closure, but this deal meant they never would. On July 2nd, 2025, Brian Coburger, now 30, returned to court. For the first time since his arrest, he spoke briefly. When the judge read each victim's name, Kayleigh Gonzalves, Madison Mogen, Zanna Cernodal, Ethan Chapin, he was asked the same question.

29:20Did you murder this person? Each time Coburger replied, yes. He was guilty. His voice never changed and his face remained expressionless. According to his defense attorneys, that flat effect was a symptom of his autism. For many in the room, though, it seemed like he simply lacked any remorse for what he'd done. Three weeks later came the sentencing. The families of the four students faced Coburger one final time, giving victim impact statements. Kayleigh's sister, Olivia, looked him right in the eye and said, quote, my sister Kayleigh and her best friend, Maddie, were not yours to take. They were not yours to study, to stalk, or to silence. There everything you could never be loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave, and

30:24powerful. Zanna's aunt took a different approach. She told Coburger that she could no longer live with the hate she felt for him, and so she forgave him. She said that if he ever wanted to tell her what had happened that night, why he'd done what he did, she would listen. Dylan Mortensen, one of these surviving roommates, sobbed as she spoke. She described her panic attacks, how she sometimes dropped to the floor, her heart racing, as she relived that day over and over again. She said that he took away her ability to trust the world around her. She said, quote, what he did shattered me in places I didn't know could break. As each person spoke, Coburger sat silent, and when he was given the chance to respond,

31:24he declined to speak. With that the case was officially closed. Coburger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences, plus ten years as outlined in a plea deal. He would not live to see the outside of a prison ever again. But even though justice had been served, there were still so many questions. The murder weapon was never found. Coburger's motive was never revealed, and police still don't know which of the students if any was the intended target. In the absence of a clear motive, theories have filled the gaps. Some believe Coburger studied criminology not to understand criminals, but to become one. At the sales university, classmates remembered how he fixated on violent offenders, asking about their emotions, motives, and how they felt before and after killing.

32:31Coburger's point to something darker, and the possibility that Coburger identified with the in-sell community, short for, involuntary celibate. It's a movement of men who feel rejected by women, and turn that resentment into hatred and violence toward them. The group's most infamous figure, Elliot Roger, killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014. He targeted a sorority house of women who he felt had rejected him. At the sales, students recalled Coburger studying Roger's case closely. He seemed fascinated by it. And according to Liz Garvis, co-director of the Docu series One Night in Idaho, it did seem like either Maddie or Kayleigh were the intended victims of Coburger's rampage. Coburger went straight to their room, and they were the first ones killed.

33:38Some theorized that maybe Coburger had crossed paths with one or both of them before the murders. Maybe he had felt rejected by them, or maybe he just became obsessed. It was hard to say, but Coburger may have left some clues behind online. Before Coburger's arrest, thousands of internet sleuth gathered in Facebook groups trading theories about the case. But one user in particular stood out. He went by the name Papa Rogers. His profile picture was an old sepia tone photo of a soldier, and his posts were odd. He asked questions about how the killer might have held the knife, which hand, which grip. He even mentioned the knife sheath before that was public knowledge. And for some reason, he kept saying that the white Hyundai Alontera was a red herring.

34:41When Coburger was arrested, and when the Facebook groups administrators saw his photo, chills went down their spines, the resemblance between Coburger and Papa Rogers' profile pic was uncanny. And the user name sounded like a reference to Elliot Rogers, the UCSB shooter. Most suspicious of all, once Coburger was arrested, Papa Rogers never made another post in the group. Authorities later said they found no evidence linking the account to Coburger, but many still believe it was him that he'd been trying to insert himself into the investigation. Even with a conviction, there's something unsatisfying about this case. Coburger never gave a confession or any kind of explanation. And for the families, friends, and even the online sleuths, that missing piece is incredibly

35:42hard to reconcile. We want answers. We believe that if we can make sense of crimes like this, we can protect ourselves from the same fate. If we know someone's motives, we can be on a lookout. But in the end, Coburger isn't the one we should remember. It's the lives he took. Kaleigh's fierce loyalty. Maddie's easy laugh. Zanna's quiet confidence. Ethan's big-hearted charm. There's no neat ending here. But when you strip away all the theories, all the fear and anger, what's left are four names, four faces, and a town that we'll never forget. Thanks for listening to this episode of Crime House 24-7.

36:43Be sure to come back tomorrow for Cults and Cons, where I get into two of the most brazen cults and con artists who ever lived. And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get every episode of Crime House 24-7 completely ad-free, along with early ad-free access to all Crime House shows, plus monthly bonus episodes. To join, go to CrimeHousePlus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Crime House 24-7 page. I've realized lately that the products I use every single morning genuinely affect how I feel for the rest of the day. If something feels heavy, greasy, overly make-upy or complicated, I just stop reaching for it. That's why I've been loving Primely Peer's new Sun Serum Tinted SPF. It gives mineral SPF 30 protection, and enough coverage to make my skin look even and healthy. But it still looks like my skin. It has this really fresh, lived and glow, and their lip and cheek tint has become one

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38:48Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love crimes of Reddit. A new Crime House original with Sabrina, Diana, Roge, and Alexis Linklenter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swab. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a Reddit 2am that starts with You Have to See This. Next, Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple podcasts and Spotify, or subscribe at Crimes of Reddit pod on YouTube.