Disturbing New Crime Scene Photos Raise Question of Whether Kohberger Had ACCOMPLICE, w/ Howard Blum

What this episode is about

Journalist Howard Blum examines the possibility that Brian Coberger may have had an accomplice in the crime for which he is accused, highlighting an unsettling question Coberger posed to police upon his arrest about whether anyone else had been apprehended. Blum discusses how recent crime scene photos and new evidence, including DNA found on a knife sheath, suggest deeper implications regarding Coberger’s potential involvement in a larger scheme.

Key takeaways

• Coberger's first question post-arrest raises red flags: does he know more than he lets on?
• Detective oversight? Uninvestigated male DNA on the knife sheath hints at a partner in crime.
• Two distinct attack methods suggest a single killer might be a statistical improbability – enter accomplice theory.
• Cover-up vibes? Law enforcement seems eager to close this case, but is the public's safety at stake?
• By tearing down the murder house, did authorities bury evidence or just their own guilt?

Who speaks in this episode?

• Megyn Kelly (Guest) · 10 min speaking
• Howard Blum (Guest) · 7 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Howard Bloom, Brian Coberger
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Brian Coberger, Dr. Brent Tarvy, Ethan Chapen, Ethan Chapin
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Dr. Brent Tarvy, Ethan Chapen, Brian Coberger, Dylan Mortonson
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Brian Coberger, Dr. Brent Tarvy, Dylan Mortonson, Washington State University
5. 12:00 – 15:00: Katherine Ramsland, Brian Coberger, Howard Bloom, Washington State University
6. 15:00 – 16:44: Birch Gold Group

Notable quotes from "Disturbing New Crime Scene Photos Raise Question of Whether Kohberger Had ACCOMPLICE, w/ Howard Blum"

• Why Howard believes now having seen the crime scene photos and done some other investigation that Brian Coberger may have had an accomplice and more than that Brian Coberger…

  about Brian Coberger · at 0:04

• Defense had hired a forensic criminologist named Dr. Brent Tarvy who was going to testify for the defense if this case had gone to trial. And this guy now obviously he's hired…

  about Dr. Brent Tarvy · at 3:43

• Ethan and Zanna appear to have been attacked at the same time. So, it's inconsistent with the state's theory that these crimes were committed solely by one individual. But Howard, isn't it.

  about Ethan Chapen · at 6:59

• Could have been wearing a headlamp. I don't know. He wasn't seen with the witness who saw him. The roommate Dylan who saw him did not say he had a headlamp on. She says she has…

  about Dylan Mortonson · at 8:13

• We do know he was thought of dating with someone. he did have a I spoke with her someone involved in the a foreign student involved in the program at WSU in the criminal justice program. and you know it was known in certain circles.

  about Washington State University · at 10:35

• His question was anyone else arrested but we're never going to know right we're unless he gives an interview to that criminologist Dr. Katherine Rumler from his undergrad program, right? Or he writes everything his sister decides to write a.

  about Katherine Ramsland · at 12:10

• Qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, just text MK to the number 989898. Birch Gold can help you roll an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold…

  about Birch Gold Group · at 16:01

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Brian Coberger — Person · Primary subject (accused/convicted in discussed case) · 5 mentions · first at 0:01
  Central figure in the discussion; Howard Bloom and the host debate whether he acted alone, had an accomplice, or was an accomplice.
• Howard Bloom — Person · Main guest (journalist/commentator) · 3 mentions · first at 0:00
  Guest advancing the theory of an accomplice, citing crime scene photos, DNA references, and perceived investigative gaps.
  That Brian Coberger may have been the accomplice to someone else. Now Howard, one of the most interesting things that you raise in your piece positing this possibility is you…
• Dr. Brent Tarvy — Person · Referenced expert (defense-retained forensic criminologist) · 4 mentions · first at 3:44
  Cited via People magazine as a defense expert who questioned whether one attacker could have committed the murders alone.
• Dylan Mortonson — Person · Witness/roommate referenced (surviving witness) · 2 mentions · first at 8:16
  Her reported sighting and changing interview details are used to question timelines, evidence (footprints), and the 8-hour delay before police were called.
• Ethan Chapen — Person · Victim referenced in case reconstruction · 3 mentions · first at 4:14
  Discussed as one of the victims; his size and location are used to argue timing/feasibility issues for a single attacker.
• Kaylee Gonz — Person · Victim referenced in injury/weapon discussion · 2 mentions · first at 4:18
  Her injuries are used to argue possible use of a second weapon (blunt force) and to question the single-attacker narrative.
  And Madison first we believe on the third floor and Kaye fought for her life and Kaye had a broken nose and many injuries about the face which we were told were defensive…
• Ethan Chapin — Person · Victim referenced in reconstruction · 1 mention · first at 4:14
  Discussed to evaluate whether a single attacker could subdue/kill him and Xanna in the alleged timeline; his size/athleticism is used to argue feasibility issues.
  Ethan and Zanna appear to have been attacked at the same time. So, it's inconsistent with the state's theory that these crimes were committed solely by one individual. But Howard, isn't it.
• Xanna Krennodal — Person · Victim referenced in case reconstruction · 1 mention · first at 4:17
  Discussed as a victim who may have been attacked contemporaneously with Ethan, supporting the 'second attacker' hypothesis.
  Now know because they've released the number of stab wounds each victim received. Kaylee received 38. Zanna, it's poor Xanna, she was the one who was awake, received more than…
• Madison Mogan — Person · Victim referenced in sequence and wound-count discussion · 3 mentions · first at 4:24
  Referenced as one of the victims; the host cites wound counts and presumed sequence (Madison and Kaylee first).
  Because we know the killer killed Kaye and Madison first we believe on the third floor and Kaye fought for her life and Kaye had a broken nose and many injuries about the face…
• Katherine Ramsland — Person · Referenced expert (criminologist/author; mentioned as potential interviewer) · 2 mentions · first at 12:19
  Mentioned as a criminologist connected to Coberger's undergrad program who might obtain an interview or account in the future.

Companies & orgs

• Washington State University — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at 10:40
  Mentioned in the context of Brian Coberger's academic background and social connections.

Sponsors

• Birch Gold Group — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 15:42
  Advertised as a financial service offering gold investment opportunities with a rebate promotion.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 We are back now with journalist Howard Bloom talking about Brian Coberger and why Howard believes now having seen the crime scene photos and done some other investigation that Brian Coberger may have had an accomplice and and more than that that Brian Coberger may have been the accomplice to someone else. Now Howard, one of the most interesting things that you raise in your piece positing this this possibility is you reckon back to hearken back to the moment Colberger was taken into custody and one of the few public statements that he made on the record about this case and the very first question he asked the investigators when he was arrested.

0:48 Yes. On the night of Coberg's arrest in his parents' house in Pennsylvania, he's put up in zip ties. His parents and one of his sisters are put in zip ties by the police. He's taken out to a state trooper's car. He's sitting put in the back seat. And the first thing he says to the state trooper is, "Was anyone else arrested?" And at the time, no one really paid too much attention to this. We thought he was being the beautiful son concerned about his parents or his sister. But now in retrospect when you look at all the other aspects of the case, when you look at what occurred that night, whether one man could have done it, this question, you know, has a more ominous echo. Was anyone else arrested? It raises the possibility that someone else is out there right now and and we go to the

1:38 it really is an odd question when you think about it. You know, if Coberger, we know he committed the crime, but the let's assume assume if he had done it totally by himself with no accomplice, why would that be the first question you asked investigators?

1:53 It it certainly is a troubling one. And and there's more evidence that makes this question even eerier. on the knife sheath, uh, which we know has Coberger's DNA on it, a little bit of touch DNA on the button snap. That was a cornerstone of the state's case against him. But there now is, according to the documents that have been released, there's unknown why DNA on it, a speck of that why DNA is male DNA. They say in the documents that they ran it against Coberger. They ran it against uh other males who had been in the house and been suspects and they could not identify it. What they didn't

2:34 Wait on the knife sheet. Yes. On the knife sheet. This bit of DNA. What they didn't do is compare this little speck. Maybe it's too small. I don't know why they didn't do this. But they didn't compare it to the blood samples they had found previously which they never investigated on the handrail and on a glove outside. Uh sometimes you don't ask questions because you don't want to know the answers. When I was, you know, talking to people in law enforcement about this theory, uh many people didn't want to talk, but one person who's very knowledgeable about the case wound up telling me said, "Look, this case is all wrapped up. We wanted it to go away and now it's going away and we're not going to poke in into it anymore. But there's a lot of things that we don't know and we'll never know.

3:20 The question is, do the Idaho state taxpayers, do the public, do the families want to leave those questions hanging out there?

3:30 Right. I mean, if it's true there's a there's another vicious serial killer roaming free. So, it seems worth a question or two. We we have now come to understand per People magazine that the defense had hired a forensic criminologist named Dr. Brent Tarvy who was going to testify for the defense if this case had gone to trial. And this guy now obviously he's hired by the defense to try to get Brian Coberger off the hook. So we take it with a serious grain of salt, but he is raising in this draft testimony that people got its hands on some similar questions. And and here is here are a few of them as as outlined by the magazine. They say that um he argued that one killer could not have contained for example both Ethan Chapen and his girlfriend Xanna Krennodal or rendered the two different types of lethal force used on Kaye Gonz because we know the killer killed Kaye and Madison first we believe on the

4:27 third floor and Kaye fought for her life and Kaye had a broken nose and many injuries about the face which we were told were defensive wounds as she definitely tried to fight him and uh that's it was it was Kayle's injuries that led the authorities at the presser after the plea to say we believed he he used a weapon a other than a knife and people were like what like there's two weapons that was the first we heard and then he kind of hedged a little saying we can't say for sure maybe you know there were speculation was it the butt of the knife but it seemed to be some sort of blunt forced object to to beat Kaye forgiving these are disturbing details Howard

5:07 I mean these are questions that are raised and that they didn't follow up on and and that I find that you know from the moment they tore down the murder house uh they wanted this case just to disappear. So many people involved in the case have just wanted to move on. The original police chief couldn't wait to quit his job and move on. The original judge couldn't uh wait to uh retire. Uh they tear down again the murder house as I said. Uh and then they're able just over a course of a weekend, a single weekend after three years nearly of legal wrangling uh to just settle things without demanding an allocution without trying to say we want the answers. Uh they say, "Well, Coberger would never tell us the truth."

5:49 Well, either he will tell you where the murder weapon is or he won't. It's pretty cut and dry to ask that question and and get a clear answer. you will be able to tell you how he knew uh the young women involved or he didn't. Uh why they did this I don't understand.

6:07 They had cards to play and they refused to play them. Um I want to go back to this guy Dr. Brent Tarvy because he's raising other good questions along the lines of yours. Um I mentioned so we're looking at the injuries on Kaye who we now know because they've released the number of stab wounds each victim received. Kaylee received 38. Zanna, it's poor Xanna, she was the one who was awake, received more than 67 stab wounds. Madison Mogan 28 and Ethan Chapen 17. Um, and he was asking questions about how could Ethan have been killed with Zana? Like he said it is not reasonable to think that Ethan would have remained in his bed after waking up or being awake while Zana was being attacked in front of him. This evidence and context begin to suggest the existence of a second attacker.

6:59 Ethan and Zanna appear to have been attacked at the same time. So, it's inconsistent with the state's theory that these crimes were committed solely by one individual. But Howard, isn't it possible that Brian Coberger could have could have attacked Ethan first, killed him, and then killed Zana? Because you would think he would take out the man before, you know, going after the woman. It see it's possible, but the way it's been reconstructed now and the way I understand the events is that Zanna was literally going up the stairs cuz she heard the commotion uh in the in the third floor bedroom and then she was going down and Coberger chased her and then immobilized her. Then he dealt with Ethan and then she was killed. That's the way it's been explained to me. But also, you know, Ethan is 6'4. He was a big guy. was a a basketball uh star in high school. Uh an athlete. Uh it's sort of hard to believe. Also, the house was

8:01 dark. There are two different floors. There's a long staircase. It takes time to move around. Uh how all this could happen. Uh and and by one person, I I just don't see it. You know, just

8:13 could have been wearing a headlamp. I don't know. He wasn't seen with the witness who saw him. The roommate Dylan who saw him did not say he had a headlamp on. She says she has some device like maybe a vacuum cleaner she said at one point. But let's go back to the these two survive witnesses. You know, they're victims too. They went this is horrible for them. And yet at the same time, there's a lot we don't know, a lot we don't understand that raises troubling questions. And it's exacerbated by the fact that when we read the interviews, they keep on changing their story. There's no coherent consistent storyline through all their uh interviews with the authorities. and and see

8:51 well one one of one of the questions is where where are the bloody footprints I guess there were not a ton of bloody footprints all over these pictures or the murder scene Howard and the question is who who cleaned them up or like let's say Brian Coberger was wearing headto toe covering including booties well those booties would have made footprints they wouldn't have had treads on them but they would have made bloody footprints and if he took off the booties immediately after the murders, he would have had to step through blood.

9:22 There was so much blood. So either way, there there should be bloody footprints. And this is again one of the things this Brent Tarvy was pointing out. There there's an absence of bloody footwear patterns at the scene in general.

9:34 It's a very important question. There it is. You know, there's this eight-hour gap between the uh Coberger or the assassin being spotted by Dylan Mortonson and then they're calling the police. The house in the during that period looks very much as if it were cleaned up. The blood, the footprints, it's is not there. If you look at the picture of the knife sheath on the bed, it looks like it's been arranged. Did the police do that or was it done by someone else? These are questions that I think should be answered. And I think what the the defense could have raised this issue of an accomplice, but again, they settled. Why did Coberger settle so quickly? What was he trying to pro protect? Did he have enough of a relationship with someone that he would want to protect them? Uh, again,

10:26 well, they'd know. They'd know if he had a relationship with somebody that would be all over his phone. There'd be eyewitnesses to that. We'd know if he if he were dating somebody or communicating with someone.

10:35 We do know he was thought of dating with someone. Uh he did have a I I spoke with her uh someone involved in the a foreign student involved in the program at WSU in the criminal justice program. Uh and you know it was known in certain circles they would say uh oh she has a coer. Uh that's how they sort of made made fun of her at the time or mocked her. That was her boyfriend. And there's more we're learning about Coberger. The question is he cleaned his phone. I I think one theory would be that he's wants to have the last laugh. Why did he settle? He knew he was doomed. But this is his one secret he can hold on to that will give him strength to survive because he knows something that we don't know. And why the prosecution did not press to get these issues re resolved to get answers is something that I still find troubling.

11:31 It is I mean when you think about it it's the thing that troubled everybody from the beginning and we didn't know that there were 150 total stab wounds in the beginning. We just knew that four people were killed in a very short time. But it's down to about nine minutes. 150 stab wounds in a it's not gunshot. It's it's stabbing somebody. stabbing four somebody's over the course of nine minutes from different room to different room to struggles at least two fought for their lives that would have gone on and again the absence of some bloody evidence that we would have expected um yeah I mean these really are very good questions and then his question was anyone else arrested but we're never going to know right we're unless he gives an interview to that criminologist Dr. Katherine Rumler from his undergrad program,

12:21 right? Or he writes everything his sister decides to write a book which is perhaps have happening or maybe something will come out. I don't think conspiracies can be uh buried forever, but we're still looking into other old con conspiracies that have lingered for for generations. So, uh I'm going to poke around a bit more into it. I'm getting some leads to follow. Maybe they're dead ends, but I think it's important to raise these hypotheses. I mean, the search for truth is the search for greater theories and uh I'm looking at new theories.

12:56 Very important. Correction, Katherine Ramsland. Katherine Rumler is the uh general counsel or well, she's high up at Goldman Sachs now, but she used to be a Jeffrey Epstein adviser, which she doesn't want us to talk about now, but you were, madam. You're all over the documents. and I saw you I heard you myself on audio tapes advising him. So deal with that. Um okay that now there's a report out that Brian Coberger may be getting transferred. The prison's denying it but there are some sources saying trust us it's true from this Idaho prison where he's been sentenced because he's been so utterly difficult. Howard. He complains regularly about the food, about his treatment from the other prisoners. They try to keep him up all night. They threaten him with sexual assault. I mean, I think it's called being a prisoner and but he's so annoying to the prison staff that they reportedly want to get rid of him and um ship him off to

13:53 anybody who will take him. Uh again, the Prison on the Record is denying that that's happening, but Fox News had uh it was either it was Oh, no, it was Daily Mail, an interview with uh a source who went on the record saying, "It's true. Trust me. Uh I'd bet millions of dollars on it." Or was it Fox? Yeah, it was Fox. A guy named Mcdana who says he has solid information from a prison insider and that the move could take place in about a month. I'd put $2 million on it, he told Fox News Digital. So, uh, what do you make of that report?

14:27 Do you believe it? I I I certainly don't know anything about the credibility of that specific report. I do know a bit about Coberger's personality and character. All his time at Washington State University was time of constant complaining. That's all he did. When I spoke with uh the people who were close to the girlfriend that he or the friend, she wasn't a romantic girlfriend, she was a friend who maybe wanted to have a romance with him, but he was friendly with. It was one of constant complaining, constant bickering. That is part of his personality. Even his friends in Pennsylvania talked about that. So that would seem to fit his character. But again, I don't know anything at all about the specific uh being transferred.

15:10 I don't know anything about that. Okay. Well, this guy Mcdana is a retired homicide detective who is a source for the Daily Mail on this and he's saying he's got it. So, we'll see if he gets prison. I mean, transferred from this prison to another. It's one of those things, Howard, like be careful what you wish for because a prison that says we'll take him. We don't mind all that complaining is probably not going to be a great one. A new year means new financial goals like making sure your savings are secure and diversified. Will this be the year you decide to talk to someone from Birch Gold Group? They use an educational approach with a deep understanding of macroeconomics. There are forces pushing the dollar lower and gold higher, which is why they believe every American should own physical gold.

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Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Disturbing New Crime Scene Photos Raise Question of Whether Kohberger Had ACCOMPLICE, w/ Howard Blum"?

Megyn Kelly (Guest), Howard Blum (Guest).

What is "Disturbing New Crime Scene Photos Raise Question of Whether Kohberger Had ACCOMPLICE, w/ Howard Blum" about?

Journalist Howard Blum examines the possibility that Brian Coberger may have had an accomplice in the crime for which he is accused, highlighting an unsettling question Coberger posed to police upon his arrest about whether anyone else had been apprehended. Blum discusses how recent crime scene photos and new evidence, including DNA found on a knife sheath, suggest deeper implications regarding…

What is mentioned in this Megyn Kelly episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Brian Coberger, Howard Bloom, Dr. Brent Tarvy, Dylan Mortonson, Ethan Chapen, Kaylee Gonz. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Disturbing New Crime Scene Photos Raise Question of Whether Kohberger Had ACCOMPLICE, w/ Howard Blum"?

The episode runs 17 min; the transcript is about 3,009 words in 27 timestamped sections.

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