Howard Blum, former New York Times journalist and author of "When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders," joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the murders of Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at the University of Idaho.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Howard Bloom,
00:07a former New York Times journalist and author of When the Night Comes Falling, a Requiem
00:11for the Idaho Student Murders. Howard, thank you so much for joining me.
00:16My pleasure to speak with you.
00:19Your new book covers the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, Ethan Chapin,
00:25Hailey Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, and Zanna Kornodal. And at the beginning of the book,
00:30you note something that an editor told you at the beginning of your career, which was
00:34people talk. And while tracking this story, you crisscrossed between Idaho and Pennsylvania
00:40across the country, and you did get people to talk. So how did you do that?
00:46It's always hard as a journalist to get people to talk. I started the New York Times. I was
00:52there for over a decade, longer at Vandy Farris, a contributing editor. I've done many
00:56books. And the hardest thing is to get people to confide in you. It was particularly hard
01:03in this case because there was a gag order. People with actual knowledge of events were
01:09under court order not to share it. So here's what I did. Fortunately, I had one thing in
01:15my favor. I got out to Idaho before there was a suspect in the early days of the case
01:21and before there was a gag order. And therefore, I was able to establish relationships with
01:26people in law enforcement, people in the town, people who knew people. When I went to Pennsylvania,
01:34there was less of a gag order for the people who knew the suspects, and I could speak to
01:39them also. But what I really did, which was sort of a big breakthrough for me, is I copied
01:45something that the FBI did. What the FBI did to make this case is they did something called
01:50investigative genetic genealogy, which they try to use DNA to build up family clusters,
01:56to build a family tree. And the family tree in this case, it's limbs extended all the
02:01way out to Brian Kober. I went at the end of the limb and I worked my way back talking
02:07to the relatives of people involved, people who had spoken with their family members about
02:14the case and were not constrained by a gag order, who were not reluctant to speak. They
02:19spoke under confidential terms. I could not reveal their identity, but they were able
02:24to give me information that allowed me, I think, with accuracy and with some drama to
02:30reflect the feelings and thoughts of the people involved.
02:34So let's first talk about that family tree. And you really got a sense of who Brian Kober
02:39was, the suspect in this case, based on who his dad was and through the lens and perspective
02:45of his father, Michael. So can you talk to us a little bit about that?
02:50Yes. The book is structured around a really incredible cross-country trip that the suspect,
02:57Brian Kober, takes with his father just basically two weeks after the murders. And the father
03:05has come all the way out to Washington State. He's 68 years old. This is a big trip for
03:10him. It's also an expensive trip, but he wants to drive back across country with his son.
03:15He also, at the start of the trip, is having some thoughts. He knows that there have been
03:22four people murdered in the town that's 10 miles away from where his son is studying.
03:28He knows his son has a very combative temperament. He's had to report his son to the
03:36authorities when his son was a heroin addict for stealing a cell phone from one of his
03:41sisters. And also, it's been announced at this point, as he gets into the car, a white
03:46Hyundai Elantra that the authorities are looking for, a white Hyundai Elantra of the approximate
03:52year of his son's. So he puts all this together. And yet, as he begins to follow these mental
04:00footsteps, he's still, at this point, unable to make the leap as they go further.
04:05Then the car starts making its way across country. On the second day, they're stopped
04:11by a traffic cop. And he begins to wonder, are all my thoughts coming true? And everything he's
04:19trying to repress that he can't admit seems to be coming to fruition. But this is just a traffic
04:26stop. So he recovers a bit. Then exactly nine minutes later, they're stopped by another traffic
04:32cop. And it's just he's having to relive the same horrible day time after time, almost like
04:38Groundhog Day. And now he's becoming clearer and clearer in his mind. He's making the realization
04:44that maybe, maybe his son is involved in this case as the murderer. His son could be capable
04:53of killing four people. And it's a terrible and horrific thing for a father to get to. And he's
04:58not quite there. As the trip extends over a period of days, he gets closer and closer to
05:04this realization. I want to talk about if you think that Brian's dad, Michael, thinks that
05:11his son could do this. Because we, as people following this case, saw Michael on the body
05:18cam footage from those two traffic stops, like you mentioned. But you paint this really grim
05:24picture of a father who in the back of his head has an inkling that, hey, my son, it felt like
05:30reading your book. Hey, my son might have done something really horrible here. And then when
05:37you get to Pennsylvania, Brian, Brian Coburger's sister finds out Brian's going through the trash
05:43with latex gloves. She relays this to her father. Do you think in all of your uncovering for this
05:49book that Michael Coburger believes his son is the murderer? Well, first, to begin to answer that,
05:57you mentioned that traffic stop. At that traffic stop, the first thing Michael Coburger brings up
06:03is something seemingly totally tangential. He talks about a SWAT team killing that happened
06:09earlier that day at Washington State University, where his son goes to school. And it's as if
06:16murder is on his mind. He can't repress the thought. He just blurts it out. Then he repeats
06:21it at the second traffic stop. All these thoughts that he's trying to keep down deep inside him,
06:28just at any occasion, just burst forward. And also leading up to that, his son has been talking to
06:35him about the troubles he's having in school with the administration. How he's having
06:42problems with the professor he's working with because they think he's grading too hard, but he's
06:46going to be able to work it out. And then suddenly, when he gets back to Pennsylvania, one of Brian's
06:52sisters, who's a family psychologist, a very intelligent young woman, she sees her brother
07:00meticulously cleaning his car. The car just happens to be a white Hyundai Elantra, which is just the
07:07car the authorities are looking for. Then, if that's not enough, she sees her brother at night
07:13taking his garbage and putting it into Ziploc plastic bags, walking down the hill from the house
07:19and going to a neighbor's home to deposit the garbage in that trash. So she realizes that he's
07:26perhaps trying to get rid of anything that might incriminate him in this murder. And she confronts
07:31the father. And she says, in effect, that something is going on. I'm really beginning to
07:40suspect that Brian might be involved in these murders. And what does the father do?
07:46He can't respond. It's too overwhelming a thought. There are moments that are just
07:50too hard for anyone really to live through. And he just sort of walks out of the room.
07:56But there's a quota to this story that's extremely ironic. When the identification is made
08:03that by the FBI to make sure that it's Brian Koberger, they use DNA that was the father's DNA.
08:14The father's DNA matches the DNA that's found on a knife sheet that's left in the murder house
08:21to 99.9% certainty. So the father, almost like a Greek tragedy, does everything he can to avoid
08:32identifying that his son could be the murderer. Yet ultimately, inevitably, as it's stated,
08:38it is the father who identifies the son. That's part of the drama I try to play out in the book.
08:45One of the most revealing and jarring moments of the book is when Brian has the latex gloves on,
08:53and he is picking out the trash and separating his own trash with those gloves on. And that's
08:59how he's ultimately found when he is arrested. I do want to note Brian Koberger has maintained
09:04his innocence. He is alleged the murderer in this case here. I am curious. He was studying to get
09:12his doctorate in criminology, and this case has been covered at length for a year and a half now.
09:18He has been portrayed as this criminal mastermind. Do you think that's the case?
09:24I think Brian Koberger is very intelligent. I think he was trying to use his studies,
09:33what he had learned as an undergraduate and graduate student, try to get away with something
09:38to prove that he was smarter than everyone else. At the same time, when you commit a crime like this,
09:46it's almost impossible, and it proved to be certainly impossible for him to cover it up
09:52completely. Because there was one big mistake. There was a knife sheath left at the site where
10:03two of the girls were murdered on the third floor of the house. And he did that, I believe,
10:07inadvertently. He was caught up in the moment. He expected only to see one girl in that room.
10:13There were two. And all his plans went up in smoke at that moment.
10:20I want to go back out west a bit here. This case really shocked and shook an entire nation.
10:28I am curious. You were on the ground in Moscow. What was it like?
10:32It was a very tense time in Moscow. I mean, the town to this day is shaken by the events.
10:42I remember going to the murder house in the early days, and they had boarded up the door with plywood.
10:48And I was thinking to myself, standing there in the cold, it was freezing there at night in Moscow,
10:53and my stocking had pulled down tight, my parka on, I'm staring at the house. I'm wondering,
10:59I'm wondering, was this plywood door put up to keep people out or to keep the demons inside?
11:06And I'm staring there, and all of a sudden, I'm trapped in a cone of light, a cone of light from
11:11nowhere. I can't find where it's kind of just trapping like this. And a voice calls out,
11:17be careful, it's icy there. It seemed there had been a security car, a dark security car,
11:23parked catty corner to the house, and they were watching out for me. But I thought at that moment,
11:30as I was sort of pulled from my reverie in this night in front of the house, that's what it must
11:36have been like in some way to be awoken from your sleep and realize there's someone there,
11:41and he has a knife in your hand. Total shock and total surprise and powerlessness.
11:47I want to talk about, you cover this in your book, and these are two of the biggest questions
11:52surrounding the case, and both are why. So let's talk about one of the why's here,
11:57and that is one of the roommates allegedly heard someone say something to the effect of there's
12:02someone here. They saw the suspect after he committed the murder's leave, but 911 was not
12:10called until eight hours later. Why do you think that is?
12:16It's a very important question, and it's a question that really
12:22seems absurd, and it defies a logical answer. So you have to, I think, try to go back to what
12:29was going on at that time. I think the woman, young woman, Dylan Mortensen, who comes out of
12:36the room and sees the suspect walking by. He's dressed in black. He has a black mask on. She's
12:44been hearing noises. She's overwhelmed. As she puts it, she's in a state of frozen shock. Those
12:51were her words. At the same time, the killer, I believe, is locked up in his own mania, his own
12:59armory of hate, and she's quiet. She can't speak. If she had spoken, if she had said something,
13:06if she had even cried in terror, I believe that would have been her death warrant. I believe
13:11that would have pulled the killer, the assailant, from his locked-in state, from his very isolated
13:20world, and he would have turned on her, and she would have been another victim, but her fear
13:26really saved her. The next morning, there's no logical explanation of what went on, and I think
13:33it's a moment that was just too large for her. Just like the father couldn't deal with what he was
13:39discovering, similarly, this young woman couldn't deal with what she had realized,
13:46and when she finally goes into action, decides to do something, she and her other roommate,
13:52they don't call the police. They call their friends, and the friends come, and the friends
13:58use her cell phone to call the cops. The second largest question is, why would somebody do this?
14:04Because you paint a picture of these victims and who they were. Kaley Gonzalez and Madison Mogan
14:09were best friends and beyond best friends, sisters, essentially, from when they were in
14:14elementary school to now, and now they're roommates. And Xander Knodel and Ethan Chapin
14:20were just a beautiful couple. So I want to talk about the motive here. Why would somebody do this?
14:25First, let's talk about the prosecution. What is the prosecution saying? They believe Brian
14:30Koberger did it. Why do they believe that? The first thing that the prosecution and the
14:36defense, probably the one thing they agree on, they say categorically, for the record,
14:41they've stated this in court, there has never been any interaction between Brian Koberger
14:46and any of the victims, any conversations. He has not followed them on social media.
14:53So they've said there is no linear connection. There's no rational, reasonable
15:00connection between them. But I think it's more complicated. I believe, first, one has to
15:07answer your question. One has to ascertain who was Brian Koberger's target allegedly that night.
15:17I don't think he entered the house to kill four people. I think he made his way from the second
15:23floor. He deliberately goes up the third floor, narrow staircase, and enters Maddie Mogan's
15:29bedroom. I think his target was Maddie Mogan. He's surprised to see Kaley Goncalves there.
15:37That takes him by surprise. He, I believe, is someone prone to obsession. He's a heroin addict.
15:45The man who loses 130 pounds is able to do that. The man who turns his body into a fortress
15:53from this obesely overweight young man. The man who was a poor student at a community college
16:01manages to get into a first-class university graduate program. He throws himself into this.
16:07And somewhere, someday or sometime, at the mad Greek restroom where Maddie is working as a
16:14waitress, her blonde ebullience, her beauty, her perky personality, somehow caught his eye.
16:21They didn't even need to say a word to one another for this image to get stuck in his mind.
16:28And I think he would have gone by the house on different occasions, from a distance, seen the
16:34parties that were taking place there. And he was metaphorically, almost actually, someone in the
16:41bushes outside looking in, hearing in. And his life was cut off from all these, as he imagined, good
16:48times. He could never, he reinvents himself, but he can never totally reinvent himself. And the
16:54presence of these young people living with such excitement, such vitality, was a rebuke to him.
17:00And Maddie, Maddie symbolized it all. So he went there on a mission to rid himself of what was
17:07tormenting him. When he gets there, he finds that there's another young woman there, Kaley
17:14Clavis. She becomes collateral damage as he tries to walk out of the house. He encounters Ethan
17:21and Zana. As you said, they're young, wonderful young people. And Ethan is taken by surprise.
17:30He's 6'4", an athlete, but he's just eliminated with one, really, one brutal knife swipe to his
17:37neck. And then he, the killer approaches towards Zana and he speaks out, this is heard by the
17:43women survivors, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. What
17:50could be more vicious, more deliberate than that? As he then moves in to kill her. And according to
17:55the autopsy, her hand has a knife wound straight through the middle. He was so vicious and she was
18:02so defensive. Everyone but Maddie was collateral damage. And I think that helps explain his motive.
18:13A killer needs someone, I believe, as I put it in the book, someone to love or someone to hate.
18:21And I think he hated those young kids so much and loved himself so much in return that he did not
18:30want to exist in a world where they were a constant rebuke to the life he was living.
18:35The defense is obviously going to paint a much different picture of this once this goes to trial.
18:41And you have some insight into that, into the book. Can you share some details there?
18:47Yes. First, you know, I have a Washington Post editorial that just came out actually today
18:54where I talk about the defense's strategy. And there's an old lawyer's wisdom, if you have the
19:00facts, pound them. If you don't have the facts, pound the table. And I think the defense has been
19:06pounding the table with a rat-a-tat-tat of motion after motion after motion to try to get this trial
19:12delayed. They finally, after nearly two years, come up with an alibi. They formally introduced
19:19this into court. And this is what they've waited two years to say, that their client, Brian
19:26Koberger, was out stargazing at four o'clock in the morning when the murders occurred at a
19:34rural park where there were no witnesses. It was a freezing, cloudy night, but he was out there.
19:40And he just either turned his cell phone off or there were no cell phone towers that could
19:47pick up his cell phone's presence. Well, that's a pretty thin alibi, I think, after a year and a half.
19:54And I think if the defense really believed it, they would have been shouting from the rooftops
19:59on day one. They would have wanted to get their client out of jail, and they would also want to
20:05have the person responsible for these murders tracked down and arrested. But I don't
20:11think that's their real intention. I think they've just been trying to delay and delay and delay.
20:18And now, on August 29th, they're going into court to try to get a change of venue, to move the trial
20:24out of Moscow to Coeur d'Alene or somewhere else further north in the state. And I think that's
20:32also a tactical error on their part to explain why I think they might get their best break
20:40in Moscow for Koberger getting off. First, it's a small town of 25,000 people.
20:49Anyone associated with the university, I think, will not be able to serve on the jury.
20:54Therefore, that means a large part of the jury pool will come from one of the Christ Church
21:00groups known as the Kerkers. This is a group that believes in trying to turn Moscow, Idaho,
21:07into a Christian theocracy. That's what they've said. And they've had many conflicts with the
21:14law in town, particularly over pandemic issues. They didn't want to wear masks.
21:21They had prayer and protest. People were arrested. And the pastor of the church,
21:29a pastor, Doug Wilson, who I spoke with a couple of times, is a very charismatic, very articulate,
21:35very persuasive man who has stern control over his very obedient flock. And he told me,
21:42well, I would recommend to my parishioners if any Moscow policeman gets on the stand
21:48to testify, and my parishioner is a juror, I would tell him, well, I wouldn't necessarily
21:54believe this police officer because we know he's lied in cases about us. And how can we
22:00believe him in this case? Aside from the Kerkers, who you do mention in your book,
22:06when you were in Moscow, was there a sense from the community, an overwhelming sense,
22:12that they believe Brian Koberger is the man responsible here? Or is there a question
22:18within the community? The community, I think in my conversations with them, more than
22:27focusing in on Brian Koberger, has a sense of their own victimization. They all feel that
22:33they are victims in this tragedy. And the postponement, constant postponement of the trial
22:39is just intensifying their victimization. Many of them do believe that Brian Koberger is guilty.
22:47At the same time, they're also a bit enraged how the local police treated this case from the
22:55beginning. To go back to the early days when there was blood dripping from the floorboards
23:02of the house outside on the concrete stanchions, and the people in the town could see this,
23:08the local police chief made a statement saying, it's okay. People don't have to worry. We think
23:16this was a targeted case. Well, at that point, he had no idea who the killer might have been.
23:23And he did not know if there was a serial killer loose or what was going to happen. And the people
23:29in the town and the students at the university should not have been told this line. However
23:36confident it was to the police, it put them in danger. And there is still some resentment about
23:41that. Steve Gonsalves, the father of Kaylee, one of the victims, you write in your book that he
23:48apparently texted this. There is so much more to this than is in the media. This case was covered
23:54so heavily. So what do you think the media missed? Something's not involved in the conversation.
24:01What do you think the media could have gotten wrong here?
24:05Steve Gonsalves, who is not very happy with me and my book, my heart goes out to him.
24:16This is a man who lost his daughter. At one point confronts the media and says,
24:22oh, how do you deal with, you sent your daughter off to college and she comes back to you in an
24:27urn. I mean, that's heartbreaking. I say that as a human being, as a father of three children.
24:34At the same time, I also believe his sense of trying to get not just justice, but vengeance
24:43has made him put him on a quest to try to get things. And by his saying that,
24:51that there are more things out there that couldn't be true, but also I'm trying to reflect his
24:58mindset of a man who's just totally committed, a father doing, even though his daughter has
25:04been killed, of getting to the bottom of things, of not giving up, of not yielding to events.
25:10It's what keeps him going. He and his family members often go to hearings wearing a t-shirt
25:16that makes a reference to support Idaho law, I think it's 186. And that's a law which allows
25:24for a firing squad if someone is found guilty of a capital crime, if the chemicals for an injection
25:32of death penalty are not available. And they are a very angry, hurt, tormented family. And
25:44that it's going to be hard for them to heal, I feel.
25:49You did mention this at the top of that response there, that Steve Goncalves
25:54isn't happy with your book. He released this statement in part about it. He writes, or he
25:59said this, Mr. Bloom's book, in our opinion, is fiction. We have never spoken with Mr. Bloom
26:03about the contents of his book, and it's just another book and another dollar to be made on
26:08the deaths of four young college students. What's your response to his sentiment there?
26:15My heart goes out to him. I certainly don't want to get into an argument. He's entitled to his
26:22opinion. I state quite clearly in the book, I did not speak with him. I did speak with his attorney.
26:31I think there are lots of agendas here. I'll stand by everything that's written in the book.
26:38I don't think he deals in any specific facts I've gotten wrong. And I don't think he denies
26:44any of the texts I say he sent to people. And I'll leave it at that. I'm sorry. He's in a very,
26:52very difficult situation. And I wish with all my heart he wasn't in that situation.
26:59And I'll leave it at that. So the book is out now,
27:04but the case still isn't going to trial yet. So what are you looking out for next?
27:10Well, the first thing is, as you've just said, it hasn't gone to trial yet. When is this case going
27:16to go to trial? Are they going to have a change of venue, which will delay things for at least
27:22a year and maybe longer? Will it go on and on for two years? The Sixth Amendment calls for a speedy
27:33trial. The Supreme Court has also allowed trials to be delayed. But this is getting,
27:40oh, I think injurious to the town, to the families, to the surviving of two young women
27:48who survived that night. I think there needs to be, for the sake of everyone involved in that
27:53community, a resolution. When the Night Comes Falling covers a horrible tragedy. It's a harrowing
28:02read. Where can people find the book? Well, the book, fortunately, is in bookstores,
28:09independent bookstores everywhere. It's on Amazon, where it's an Amazon bestseller. It's at Barnes
28:14and Noble, where it's a Barnes and Noble bestseller. I've had it modestly. And it should
28:20be able to get anywhere. You can just press a button these days and get a copy on your Kindle
28:26and within seconds. Howard Bloom, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate your reporting
28:32and the conversation today. Appreciate speaking with you, too.