The Moscow Murders and More

What The Warrants Tell Us About The Police Work Behind The Scenes In Moscow

The Moscow Police department was under heavy criticism and pressure to solve these murders and at the start of the investigation, they shot themselves in the foot with poor communication that ended up seeing them walk back previous comments. However, the actual police work behind the scenes was exceptional.

In this episode, we take a look at the work behind the scenes by the investigators using the newly released documents as a guide.

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to contact me:

bobbycapucci@protonmail.com

source:

Idaho search warrants show Moscow homicides police work before Bryan Kohberger’s arrest (yahoo.com)

Duration:: 24m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

and welcome back to the program. We've been diving into the core documents that have been released lately, and there has been quite a bit of them. Well, if you look at those core documents, and you take a look at the case overall, you start to see things in context a little bit better, and especially when we're talking about those digital warrants. Remember when this offer started? We were hearing from the investigators during their weekly updates about the 50 warrants that they had served as far as a digital nature. Well, these are those warrants. And while they're heavily redacted, we get an idea of what the investigators are looking for by the nature of these warrants. And we also see that the police were hard at work this whole entire time behind the scenes, even at the early stages of the investigation, the investigators had something cooking behind the scenes. And obviously, all of these little pieces of evidence that they had uncovered ended up snowballing together and leading them to Brian Cobra. And that's how it happens in these kinds of investigations, right? It's a ton of circumstantial evidence that has to be weaved together by the investigators so that when it comes to trial time, the jurors look at it and say, all right, well, all of that circumstantial evidence added up leads us to believe that so-and-so is guilty. And that obviously is the goal here. And when you look at the totality of the evidence that's been provided, I find it to be pretty damn strong circumstantial, sure, but added together in its totality, very difficult for Brian Cobra to work his way out of this. Today, we have an article from the Idaho statesman headline, Idaho's search warrants show Moscow homicide's police work before Brian Cobra's arrest. This article was authored by Kevin Fixler. Dozens of newly released search warrants in the investigation into November's University of Idaho homicides reveal for the first time how law enforcement pursued and developed evidence that led to the arrest of suspected killer Brian Coburger. Based on the Idaho state's been analysis, the hundreds of pages of redacted warrants and warrant returns, as well as Laetah County prosecutor case filings to keep them all under seal, span some of the biggest companies and social media, shopping, banking, and telecommunications. And as we've been making our way through those court documents, it's rather obvious that the investigators didn't leave a stone unturned, especially when we're talking about the digital warrants. Now, we don't know what those warrants yielded, but they sure did get a lot of them. Filings include Google, Apple, Walmart, Amazon and META, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, detailing the path police took in piecing together the four victims whereabouts and learning more about the 28 year old graduate student, allegedly behind the stabbing deaths on November 13th. Four days after discovering the bodies of U of I students, Kaylee Gonzalez, Madison Mogin, Zanna Colonel, and Ethan Chapin at an off-campus rental home on King Road and Moscow, police expanded their hunt with legal demands for phone and area cell tower data, the trove of records showed. Moscow police forensic detective Lawrence Mallory, a four year member of the force with a dozen years of law enforcement, took the lead on filing nearly 70 warrants over three months, most recently in late January. I think they got a little bit confused there. I believe that Mallory is the the officer with over 12 years of experience, and it was Corporal Brett Payne, the other detective who only has four years of experience, just a minor correction there. Investigators began by serving search warrants to AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Inland Cellular, a regional carrier that operates in North Central Idaho and Southeastern Washington. And all of those search warrants are super crucial to what's going on. And that's why we continue to go through them one by one here on the podcast. It's going to give you a blueprint on how to follow what's going on in the court. With the gag order, it makes it a lot more difficult because we're not getting information from the media. So we have to do the legwork ourselves and try and put the pieces together by what's going on inside of that courtroom. And the way to do that is to follow along with these court filings. They sought a history of all the devices that ping cell towers within a half mile radius of the Moscow home between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on November 13th. They received the bulk of the data within just a couple of days and began to pour over the GPS coordinates of cell phones and other devices on nearby networks in the early morning timeframe. Police would later state in a probable cause affidavit to obtain a warrant for Coburgers arrest that his cell phone did not use the cell towers near the King Road home during those two hours. Investigators alleged that Coburger did this purposefully to avoid alerting law enforcement that his cell phone was near the crime scene. So they assert that Brian Coburger did this on purpose. That way he would evade any sort of scrutiny by investigators after the fact. Individuals can either leave their cellular telephone at a different location before committing a crime or turn their cellular telephone off prior to going to a location to commit a crime. Read the affidavit signed by Moscow Police Corporal Brett Payne. A national telecommunications expert previously told the statesman it would be impossible to know whether someone turned off their phone for a period unless they received a call and records showed it went directly to voicemail. So again it's going to be the battle of experts. The same thing we saw with Alec Murdoch that's going to occur here. The experts are going to have to battle it out then it's going to be up to the jury to decide what they believe. Law enforcement's information gathering continued during the homicide investigations first week shifting to the credit card purchase and financial transaction histories over roughly three months for the four victims and three individuals whose names were redacted from the records. Gansalvis Mogan and Carnotal were roommates in the off campus house along with two other women who went on harmed in the knife attack and the six roommate who police said no longer lived in the home. Chapin and Carnotal were dating and he was staying at the house for the night and as far as the other redacted names my guess would be that two of them at the very least would be the surviving roommates Bethany Fonk and Dylan Mortensen. Police sent search warrants to Bank of America, Umpqua Bank, PayPal Venmo and the parent company of Point of Sales Service Square with FBI agent Michael Douglas a financial specialist helping to acquire the data the record showed. Maori also requested exterior surveillance footage from the Umpqua Bank branch on Washington Street in downtown Moscow located about a half mile from where Gansalvis and Mogan were out late at night on the night of their deaths and about one thousand feet from the popular food truck parked downtown where they stopped for a to-go order of macaroni on their way home according to the police. A week later police sent more search warrants for the victims financial transaction information to several other banks in credit card companies Wells Fargo American Express discover Washington's banner bank and three credit unions. They widened their demand to include two more people whose names were redacted for a total of nine account holders including the four victims. So again you have to think that the two surviving roommates are two of the people who were redacted here who had their information looked at because remember when this first happened the investigators had no idea who was or wasn't involved so everybody had to be a suspect at the very beginning and then they do their investigation and decide who is or who isn't somebody of interest. While serving warrants for initial financial transaction histories investigators also sent warrants to apple meta and snapchat for the four victims account information from snapchat police obtained the data from august 1st through a week after their deaths from apple they obtained each victims iCloud account information over the same period from meta police received facebook and instagram account information from august to november for the four victims plus three other people whose names were redacted several other search warrants from november to january including to apple google atnt and verizon offer no information at all they were immediately sealed and remain so and you see as we go through those documents one by one how redacted they are they have a lot of information that they are not sharing with us and that's how these investigations go and that's why i'm also convinced that they have more damning evidence as far as dna and other evidence that leads them to believe that it's brian koburger who did this early search for weapon in the first week of their investigation police had already begun trying to discover who might have bought a k-bar brand combat style knife with a leather sheath that they suspected was used to kill the four students the statesman was the first to report that police had visited moscow hardware stores and other local retailers asking about recent sales of k-bar knives and police later disclosed in the affidavit that a k-bar brand leather sheath with the us marine corn signia was located next to mogan's body in the bed where she and gansavas were found dead a single source of male dna was found on the button snap of the sheath which police said later linked to koburger the records posted friday include a search warrant for the court-of-lane police department forensics lab that since december first has remained under court seal including all related documents without release of redacted records at the request of the leita county prosecutor's office and leita county judge megan marshals order so there's a lot of stuff that is just not going to be unsealed and that information won't be available more times than not until we get to the trial police sent a search warrant to online retailer amazon for all sales dating to the beginning of the year for a k-bar full-size us marine core fighting knife and the leather sheath the next week they served a similar search warrant to wal-mart and then to ebay the number of records returned from the two retail giants and the online auctioneer are unclear because the publicly released documents are redacted but a follow-up search warrants and to ebay showed police had particular interest in 13 user accounts in nine us states and one in japan related to a k-bar us marine straight edge knife and the model one two one seven s leather sheath so right away the early stages of the investigation they already had an idea of what they were looking for and that's all because allegedly brian koburger left the sheath at the scene of the crime talk about an idiotic mistake to make if you're trying to get away with something two of the user accounts were connected to washington state another to idaho and one to pennsylvania where koburger grew up and was arrested the record showed koburger lived in pullman washington on the idaho border since the summer and attended graduate school at washington state university about two weeks after the investigation began mary sent k-bar knives incorporated located in oleon new york a search warrant for the sale of six models of their knives plus the leather sheath mary also requested information about six companies that distribute k-bar products only one of the distributors names blue ridge knives in southwest virginia was left unredacted mary later sent the wholesaler a search warrant in december about its sales back to the start of last year of usmc insignia leather sheath's with specific inquiry about 840 units bought between march and july 22nd and we went through that warrant already and it's very very interesting some of the requests now are they going to pan out who knows we're gonna have to see but there's no doubt that the investigators had an idea of what they were looking for really early on moscow police previously maintained they had yet to find the weapon they believe was used in the moscow killings pennsylvania search warrants that were unsealed and released last month from koburgers december 30th arrest showed police took three knives and a handgun from his parents eastern pennsylvania home during his arrest for koburgers apartment in pulman they took more than a dozen items including betting with red stains and the walmart sales receipt but no weapons according to the unsealed washington search warrants released in january dozens of search warrants obtained by the end of december about six weeks since the homicides investigators obtained more than 50 search warrants in the case leita county prosecutor bill tomsen told the statesman in a december 28th interview now remember that was significant when they drew those warrants and at the time we were talking about all of the information that they might learn with those warrants and obviously it's been a treasure trove for the investigators on january third marshall issued a gag order that prevents law enforcement and prosecuting and defense attorneys from commenting on the case outside of court filings later that month she added attorneys for witnesses and the victims families from speaking publicly too during the first week of december police also sent search warrants to tinder reddit google and yahoo seeking gon solve this account information from each company they wanted her dating profile and reddit data tied to two email addresses and one phone number dating to january first 2021 from google and yahoo for email accounts police requested all data from august first 2022 through a week after she died at that point in their investigation police did not seek the same information through warrants about any other of the three victims according to the records later in december with the help of a police detective in post-false about 15 minutes from gon solve his hometown in wrath drum mowery obtained decrypted access to her laptop through a search warrant sent to extreme networks the following week he also served a warrant to an offshoot of us bank for gon solve this fence financial transactions dating to september first 2022 and that's interesting because remember we were going under the assumption at the very beginning or at least some people were that it was calie who was the intended target now since we have had some time to gather information and get some context i'm under the impression that it was actually madison who was the target but none of that has been confirmed and we'll have to wait for the investigation to give us that confirmation almost immediately moscow police including chief james friday call the crime targeted and isolated and said that there was no ongoing threat to the community officials remain difficult to pin down on whether it was a specific person or the home that was the suspects presumed target gon solve his parents meanwhile later said in television interviews that they believe their daughter was the killer's target based on the severity of the injuries they said she received in the knife attack compared to the other three victims and for me that has to do with the fact that she wasn't supposed to be there she wasn't supposed to be there to ruin brian koburger's time with maddie and since she was he took out his aggression on calie and i know that sounds morbid and for most of us right thinking people that sounds like some kind of shit you would hear in a movie but when we're dealing with people who are obviously wired incorrectly and screwed up in the brain then all bets are off a day after receiving gon solve his account information from tinder police sent the company a follow-up search warrant for information for about 19 accounts that were redacted from november 3rd to december 6th at the time they also sent the dating service a separate search warrant for moggins account history from january 1st 2021 to december 6th 2022 mary sent another warrant later that month to tinder for data for the month of march 21st for 20 accounts that were redacted on december 6th police also sent a search warrant to door dash for all deliveries to the king road home dating at the beginning of the year it was later revealed in the affidavit that kernodel received a door dash food delivery at the home at approximately 4 a.m the day of the killings and police said they cleared the driver of any involvement in the crime and that's easy to do obviously this guy had his cell phone on he was delivering for door dash so the gps had him somewhere else completely and that was a very easy task for the investigators to rule this guy out at least cell phone data in sealed warrants on december 23rd for reasons that remain unclear based on the records pain obtained a search warrant for this at that he served for atnt for location data from midnight november 12th to midnight november 14th for a single phone that is redacted in the documents in the affidavit pain stated that the warrant was connected to koburger cell phone and detailed the same time frame the same day atnt provided pain with the requested information about koburger cell phone location during that 48 hour window according to the unsealed warrant the data showed koburger's phone in the area of his pullman apartment at 2 42 a.m then leaving the area five minutes later before not reporting to the cell a cellular network again until more than two hours later pain wrote in the affidavit and that was the atnt warrant that we went through earlier today that's the warrant that they're talking about right now in this article and that's why they're so significant all of those court documents because they're going to be a huge point of discussion moving forward as this case in this trial progresses when koburger's phone resurfaced on the network at 4 48 a.m police alleged in the affidavit the data showed it was using towers along Idaho 95 south of moscow and north of janice idaho near the community of blane they tracked the phone's data along a route back to pullman at about 5 30 a.m police said in the affidavit pain reported sending atnt a separate search warrant on december 23rd for the historical location data for koburger's cell phone since june 23rd 2022 when police said the the account was opened the record showed a search warrant for atnt that since january six has remained under seal including all related documents without release of redacted records at the request of the laetah county prosecutor's office and judge marshall's order moscow police served atnt no other warrants in the investigation according to the nearly 70 filings the historical data pain received about koburger's cell phone placed him based on use of the cell phone towers in the area in the vicinity of the crime scene on at least 12 occasions prior to november 13th 2022 the affidavit read all of these occasions except for one occurred in the late evening and the early morning hours of their respective days pennsylvania state police in the fbi arrested koburger at about 125 a.m on december 30th according to the unsealed pennsylvania search warrants he was flown to idaho on january 4th and the probable cause affidavit was released the next day when he made his first court appearance in idaho to face four counts of first degree murder and one count of felony burglary since then police in january issued five more search warrants each appearing related to koburger according to the newly released filings they include seeking records from washington states registers office which remain under seal without redactions as well as account information for various lengths of time for koburger's google email address tinder profile and yik Yak social media platform when the tinder and yik Yak search warrants were served uh january 25th mowery also sent dropbox illegal demand for all information connected to a person whose name is redacted plus three email accounts and one phone number each also redacted the tinder and yik Yak search warrants are identical in their requests with the exception of including koburger's name unredacted koburger remains in leitah county jail his preliminary hearing is scheduled to start in marshals county courtroom on june 26th it's interesting now to take a look at what was happening in the beginning with the benefit of hindsight to see just how much work was going on and to see just how close they were getting to brian koburger all at the same time while playing koi with the media and the rest of us and telling us they had nobody in their sights so the moscow police department they came under a lot of fire and a lot of criticism and to tell you the truth they earned a lot of it in the beginning the poor messaging for me was the bad part not the investigation itself because we weren't privy to what was going on behind the scenes so i wasn't willing to jump you know both feet into the deep end and say they weren't doing anything but the miscommunication was real bad and that was my biggest issue with the investigators in the early stages of this investigation but since then and since they cleaned up that messaging they've done a very good job and hopefully they continue to do so and we see a conviction come of this because from where i'm sitting each and every day it's looking more and more likely that brian koburger is the man that the government is telling us he is all right everybody that's going to do it for this one all of the information that goes with the episode can be found in the description box