Murder In Moscow: Can The Alleged Murder Weapon Be Tracked Even Without Possession?

0:00up everyone and welcome back to the program. Anytime that there's a murder committed, the investigators would love to have that murder weapon. But even if they don't recover the murder weapon, they can still get a conviction on murder. In fact, they can even trace the weapon without ever even finding it. Due to the wounds it makes on a body, some of the telltale marks from the weapon, pieces of it might break off during the attack inside one of the victims. There is a whole host of things that the investigators can use to try and track this knife. And that's exactly what they're going to be doing as far as this case. The prosecution would love to present the murder weapon come trial time, but it is not necessary to have that weapon to get your conviction. So what the investigators are going to do is put it all together forensically and they'll do that by looking at the kind of wounds that were on the bodies and then running that

1:01against the different kind of knives that they believe could be responsible for this kind of murder. So today we have an article from Fox News where forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan talks about this a little bit more headline Idaho murder investigators can identify the knife without it ever being found forensic expert forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan speculated they may very well have recovered a metal fragment from the blade. This article was authored by Alexander Hall. The knife used in the Idaho student murders may have left behind evidence that investigators could use the tie back to the killer. Even if the blade is never found one forensic expert said and it's amazing how far the technology has come. Think about how it was in the older days, even back in the 80s and the 90s and how easy it was for these killers, these serial killer types to get away with what they did. I mean, look at how long BTK was running around or the green river killer.

2:05Hell, look at the Long Island serial killer that still hasn't been found. I can keep going. What about the West Mesa bone collector? All of these killers were able to get away with their crimes at least for now anyway because technology hadn't caught up to it yet. There weren't as many surveillance cameras. There weren't as many, you know, obviously cell phones, pinging towers and all this other stuff that we have now. And then that's not even talking about the genetic testing and how far that's come. How many cold cases have they used DNA to clear? In the early hours of November 13th, University of Idaho students Kayley Goncalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernotl and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death allegedly by Washington State University graduate student Brian Coburger. An empty tan leather knife sheath was found next to the bodies of two of the slain students and police say the murder weapon is a fixed blade knife. So that would make sense.

3:07If you find a sheath that holds a fixed blade knife next to the bodies of murdered girls, chances are that was the sheath that was being used, right? At least that's what you would think. While the knife itself is still missing forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan described on Dr. Phil Thursday how the weapon could still be identified and linked to the killer. It's not necessary that we have the knife at this point because the knife actually could leave behind more evidence Morgan explained and that's pretty interesting. There's a whole host of different ways that the investigators and the scientists working on this DNA can go. And I'm guessing that there's a lot of other areas that we haven't even discussed yet or been made privy to about where this DNA from Coburger was also found. You would think that if all of these kids weren't sleeping when these murders occurred that a struggle certainly ensued. And if that's the case, it's pretty likely that some of Brian Coburger's DNA is on the

4:12bodies of these murdered students under fingernails on their hair, whatever. And I think when all is said and done, that's what's going to end up sinking Brian Coburger with all of the other evidence piled on top of it. He said the full body X ray done during autopsy may reveal a metal chip from the knife that can then be analyzed. That does happen when you're murdering somebody or multiple people, your knife will get dull and maybe even a piece or two of it will break off inside of the victim's body. So this knife allegedly has been used repeatedly four times. Okay, let's just think about that. The structural integrity of this thing begins to wear down. Morgan said it'll chip sometimes points break off. I've seen this any number of times at autopsy. If that is the case, they may very well have recovered a metal fragment from the blade of that knife within the body. Now we don't know one way or the other. That is pure speculation on Mr. Morgan's part and what he is saying though is from his

5:16experience of being involved in knife attacks and murders and being a forensic scientist that he has seen this before and he's seen the knives degrade and pieces of those knives break off inside of a victim's body. And with the brutality of these attacks that we have heard from the investigators, there's a chance that that might have happened here. He then explained how metallurgical analysis can be used to trace the knife back to its specific manufacturer, which could then help investigators figure out where the knife was sold and who purchased it. Yeah, that's going to be a difficult task. But hey, look, the technology is there. And if the government can figure it out and build a case based on that, more power to them. Just because the sheath was found there doesn't mean that that's the knife that was carried. So you look for a specific forensic tieback relative to the chemical structure of the blade as well. That might be a potential here in this case, Morgan noted. So that's a pretty interesting thing to talk about.

6:19Did he have another knife and leave that sheath there as his calling card as some have predicted or some have speculated? I don't know. I have no idea. It doesn't seem too likely to me, but I guess we can't discard it yet until we have all of the evidence and all of the information. I would certainly put it in the category of highly unlikely and chances are that the sheath that he left there was the sheath that was housing the knife that he used to commit these murders. And in his frenzy or his panic or the struggle, whatever, that sheath was somehow dislodged and left there by accident. Trial attorney Mercedes-Callwyn speculated that the knife's sheath may have been left at the crime scene on purpose. And this is something that some people have been talking about. And we did an episode on this yesterday and I'll tell you, I'm not really buying it. I'm not sold at Brian co-burger is some master criminal. When you look at Occam's razor, the likeliest outcome here is that he left this there by

7:22mistake while he was committing these gruesome crimes. It could be, I mean, it's almost as if and we've seen this with other killers. It's their calling card. I got this, she said, especially if you think you're smarter than everybody else and he certainly he had gloves, at least that's what's presumed that he had gloves. He tried to cover himself did something to dispose of the clothing. If he is in fact the killer, then of course, this is something that could have just been a calling card and he left it there. That's certainly possible. Look, I can't point you to evidence that says this definitely happened, but at the same time, I can't say that it didn't happen. We just don't know yet. So it really comes down to what you think is the most likely is outcome. And for me, the most likely is outcome here as far as the sheath was Brian co-burger left it there on accident in the middle of his rage. Obviously, I'm just some knucklehead sitting in the studio with only a small amount of

8:24the information, just like everybody else. But usually the most likely is outcome is the right outcome. And when it comes to something like this and Brian co-burger leaving the sheath there on purpose or it being an accident, either way, leaving that sheath there is a stupid ass idea. And if you left it there on purpose as a calling card, that might even be stupider than it being an accident, right? So let me leave you a calling card with my DNA on it so you can come and find me. Real smooth job, Hannibal Lecter. I mean, is this guy for real? Because if you really left that there as a calling card, this might go down as one of the dumbest crimes in the history of dumb crimes right up there with his buddy BTK and the stupid ass floppy disk. All of these I'm smarter than everybody else people always end up being the biggest jack asses and dumb fucks in the room.

9:24And it's certainly looking like Brian co burger is no different from the little bit of amount of evidence that we have available to us. Obviously, wherever that evidence goes, we're going to follow it. If Brian co burgers lawyers came out tomorrow with some bombshell evidence pointing at somebody else, we would chase that evidence as well. Because what really matters is that the person who is responsible for murdering these four college kids is held accountable and goes to prison and according to the probable cause affidavit and according to the authorities, Brian co burger is that man. All right, folks, that's going to do it for this one. If you'd like to contact me, you can do that at Bobby Kupucci at proton male.com. That's B O B B Y C A P U C C I at proton male.com. You can also find me on Twitter at B O B B Y underscore C A P U C C I the link that I discussed

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