Alabama's Morning News with JT
Howard Blum is covering the Idaho murders
With Lucky Land Sluts, you can get lucky just about anywhere. This is your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather's fine, but we're just going to circle up here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick, so I suggest you sit back, keep your tray table upright, and start getting lucky. Play for free at LuckyLand Sluts.com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary. BGW can avoid where prohibited by law. Let's talk about some of the angles that most people have not heard about as far as the investigation and how it came to be that he was arrested for this. For instance, let's talk about that cross-country trip that he had. Remember he left and he went over to his dad's place and dad came together. They were traveling together and the cops actually stopped, but what was going on behind the scenes with dear old dad on that one? His father comes out to go across country with his son to go home for the Christmas holidays. As soon as the father arrived in Washington State, he's suspicious. His son has had psychological problems and a heroin act, and he lives 10 miles away from where four people were killed. Then the police announced that they're looking for a white Hyundai Elantra, and there is the father sitting shoulder to shoulder with his son in a white Hyundai Elantra. The son's mood is very volatile, say the least, so to begin this cross-country trip over five days. Day by day, the father begins to put the pieces together, and he begins to suspect, "Oh my gosh, my son could actually be involved in these killings," and yet at the same time, he's great to make the final connection. It's just too overwhelming. The thought that his son might be a murderer, and in the book, I give the conversations that actually occur between the father and the son, and as they're stopped by police and traffic stops, the father's thinks that this is in the West. It's a time of building tension until they make their way to the destination in Pennsylvania. What happened with Brian Cobourger's sister and her confrontation with that? When they finally get to Pennsylvania, Brian's sister is there for the Christmas holidays, and she notices her brother's behavior. He's meticulously cleaning his white Hyundai all the time. He's taking his garbage and putting it into plastic bags, separating it from the family's garbage, so as if the police that they come looking for DNA evidence will not find his DNA, and so she's no dope. She begins to add two and two and confronts the father, and she says, "Dad, we've got a problem here," and all he can do is just walk away. He can't face where all this is leading. What's so ironic, and I point out in the book, it's almost like a Greek tragedy. The father is the father's DNA, which ultimately points the finger to the son, and is it the father can't escape his involvement in bringing his son to justice? Did his father ever call the police and say, "I think we need to talk"? Not once. His father just couldn't make that call. On some level, I don't think he wanted to believe all the facts were pointing him. My gosh, what a tough position to be in there. So could he be held liable criminally or anything in this case, Dad? I don't think so. I don't think he actually, in his mind, realized what was happening. He knew, but he didn't know. In many ways, the father and the family are victims in this too, just like the families of the young people who were killed. We're talking with Howard Bloom, an investigative reporter and a best-selling author. The new book is called "When Night Comes Falling About the Brian Coburger Case and the Idaho Student Murders." Let's talk about the FBI conflict with these local authorities. How bad was it between the FBI and the locals there? Were they cooperative or not? It was real antagonism between the local task force and the FBI. It got to the point that when the FBI finally identifies a person of interest and you decide to put a trail on Brian Coburger as he makes his trip across country, the FBI does not alert the local authorities. They weighed another four days before telling them, and they only do this because at one point during their surveillance of Coburger, they lost him. They couldn't find out where he was. They had cars following him, a highway across country. They had a chestnut in the air above him, and they couldn't find Coburger. How quickly were they on it and had this guy nailed his their main suspect? It took them six weeks, which is an awfully long time, and while they were still looking for this person, they didn't know if it was a serial killer or one person, and yet the local authorities in this college town were telling the kids just to go about their daily lives. Nothing to worry about, yet they really didn't know what was happening. It was a large mistake and put lives potentially in danger. I think one of the craziest things I saw Howard was the fact that their defense team came out later in this whole thing and said, "We've got an alibi, and we're all anxious. You can't wait to hear this," and they released it. Brian was out driving around late nights, so that's where he was. He wasn't at the murder scene. He was just out and about at two or three o'clock in the morning. That's not really an alibi. What's even more fascinating is they waited a year and a half, a year and a half while their client was in jail before coming up with this alibi that at four o'clock in the morning, he was out in a woodsy park in Washington state looking at the stars on a freezing cloudy night. That's not a very convincing alibi at all. As you did your investigative reporting and investigative work in this case, Howard, who do you think was the real target in this? I think on the night of the killings, when Brian Colberger, I believe it was Brian Colberg, even though he's nothing convicted of any crime, yet when he went into the house, he was fixated on just one of the students, Maddie Morgan, her blonde vitality, her exuberance, her beauty, fixated in his mind. He felt her presence was a rebuke to him in many ways, and he went there to take vengeance on her, and everyone else was killed. The three other students, I believe they were just collateral damage. Let's talk about the relationship prior to this event happening that night, and Brian Colberg's involvement with her or any of the others. It's actually quite interesting. There is no documented evidence of any conversations between the students in Colberg, or even his following them on social media. Both the prosecution and defense have agreed to that. However, what I've been able to uncover and what I believe happened, there was a local restaurant in town. Brian was a vegan that's specialized in vegan food. He would go there. She was a waitress there. He didn't even have to talk with her. He was a man who was prone to obsessions, a heroin addict, the man who then decides to lose 125 pounds, make his body a fortress. He does all this, and now this poor girl Maddie Morgan becomes the object of his fixation. Is there anything in the trial or the defense or the case that's troublesome as far as getting a conviction is concerned? Unfortunately, there's a lot that's troubling. The DNA involved is just touched DNA. That's not the same as blood DNA and courts around the country have been able to raise doubts about that. Also, the cell phone triangulation that puts them at the house, well, the actual cell phone records go through a 13-mile radius and 13 miles in a small town like Moscow, a quieted distance. Being in the vicinity of is not the same thing as being on the doorstep. But what about that sheath with the DNA on it, the sheath from the night that was left at the scene? The sheath, there's a speck of touch DNA, again, not blood DNA, when they were able to analyze it, the FBI finally builds out a family tree that leads to Coburger's father, not Coburger. They're able to say that the blood on this sheath belongs to Coburger family, someone associated with the Coburger family. There is a little bit of doubt there. The whole case, all the elements when they come together make a convention case. Each of the individual elements can be impugned by a defense attorney. Howard Bloom is our guest. The book is called "When Night Comes Falling" about the University of Idaho students that were murdered, allegedly, by Brian Coburger. Howard, we will talk again soon. Thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate your talking to me. Thank you. With the Lucky Land Sluts, you can get lucky just about anywhere. This is your captain speaking. We've got clear runway and the weather is fine, but we're just going to circle up here a while and get lucky. No, no, nothing like that. It's just these cash prizes add up quick. So I suggest you sit back, keep your tray table upright, and start getting lucky. Play for free at LuckyLand Sluts.com. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary. BGW Grab Boyd were prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply.