Kohberger Says His Lawyers Made Him Confess, Now He Wants the Judge Gone, Russell Brand's Trial Opens, a Split Verdict in Tennessee

0:09 Good morning. This is Daily Crime and Justice from Calaroga Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. It's Monday, October 12th, 2026. First, a correction. On Friday's show, I told you the jury in Matthew Conan's double murder trial in Tennessee could get the case any time. In fact, that jury had already reached its verdict on Thursday afternoon before Friday's episode was released. Our information was out of date, and that's on us. We'll bring you that verdict later in the show because it raises a question of its own. Now, the main story. In July of last year, Brian Koberger stood in an Idaho courtroom, and when the judge asked him whether he had murdered four college students, he said yes. Four times.

0:55 He is serving four life sentences without parole. Now he says he didn't do it. He says his own lawyers talked him into a false confession. And this week, he goes to court to try to remove the judge who sentenced him because of what that judge said about him that day. So here's the question this episode is really about. Once you've pleaded guilty in open court under oath, can you ever take it back? Let's get into it. Before we talk about Brian Koberger, let's talk about the four people this case is actually about. Kaylee Goncalves was 21. She had finished her degree early and had a job lined up in Austin, Texas. Madison Mogan was 21, Kaylee's best friend since the sixth grade. Zana Kernodle was 20.

1:42 Ethan Chapin, her boyfriend, was 20, one of a set of triplets who all went to the University of Idaho together. In the early hours of November 13th, 2022, all four were killed in a rented house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. Two other roommates in the house survived. Six weeks later, Brian Koberger, a criminology PhD student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania. Investigators had linked him to DNA on a knife sheath left at the scene. For more than two years, he fought the charges and prosecutors sought the death penalty. Remember one detail from that period because it comes back in a moment.

2:24 In 2024, it was Koberger's own defense team that asked to move the case out of Lada County, arguing that the community had been so saturated with coverage that he could not get a fair jury there. The court agreed and the case moved to Boise in Ada County, where Judge Stephen Hippler took it over. Then, in July of 2025, weeks before trial, his defense team approached prosecutors about a deal. He would plead guilty to all four murders and to burglary, and in exchange, the state would not seek his execution. He would also give up his right to appeal. At the plea hearing on July 2nd, Judge Hippler walked him through it, one victim at a time. For each of the four, the judge asked whether he had willfully and deliberately, with premeditation, killed that person. Each time, Koberger answered yes.

3:13 The judge asked whether anyone had forced him or promised him anything beyond the deal. He said no. That exchange on the record is the wall his new lawyers now have to get through. The families were split. The Mogan and Chapin families supported the deal. The Goncalves and Kernodle families wanted a trial, and Cayley's father publicly asked the judge to reject it. Judge Hipler accepted the plea. At sentencing on July 23rd of last year, Judge Hipler did not hold back. He called Koberger a faceless coward. He said his acts had made him the worst of the worst. And he said that even if Koberger could be made to explain himself, no one could trust that the explanation would be true. Then he sentenced him to four consecutive life terms without parole, plus 10 years. That should have been the end of it. On July 27th of this year, just over a year later, Koberger filed a handwritten petition for what's called post-conviction relief. That is a way to challenge a conviction outside the normal appeal process, which matters here because he gave up his right to appeal as part of the deal. In the petition, according to NBC News, he says he was, quote, convinced to falsely confess. He says his court appointed lawyers, led by Ann Taylor, gave him ineffective assistance, advised him to lie, and told him a guilty plea would be a kind of legal victory.

4:38 He says he is innocent. He made similar claims in an interview with the New York Times. He now has new lawyers. And in August, they filed a motion to disqualify Judge Hipler from hearing the petition. Part of that motion was filed under seal, so the public hasn't seen all of it. The judge ordered that the sealed portion be shared with prosecutors. Their argument goes like this. When a judge says, at sentencing, that nothing this man says can be believed, That is not just a judgment about the crime. It is a judgment about his credibility. And credibility is now the whole case because Koberger is about to ask that same judge to believe him when he says his lawyers misled him. They also argue that the judge pushed the case toward trial after the defense said it was not ready. And they want the case moved back to Lada County where the murders happened. Yes, you heard that right. The same county his original lawyers fought to get out of because they said he couldn't get a fair hearing there. His new lawyers say the media coverage has made it hard to find a neutral venue anywhere, and that the case belongs where the crime happened. Prosecutors may well point that out. On Wednesday, October 7th, Lata County Prosecutor Bill Thompson filed the state's answer. The core of it? To remove a judge for bias. The law requires proof that, quote, the judge is biased, and the bar for that is extremely high. Prosecutors say harsh words at sentencing are not bias. Forming strong opinions about a defendant is literally what a sentencing judge is required to do.

6:08 And they point out that if denying a defense request to delay a trial were enough to disqualify a judge, then almost any judge who ever presided over a guilty plea could be knocked off the case afterward. Prosecutors have separately asked the court to throw out Koberger's petition entirely, without an evidentiary hearing. On Thursday afternoon, Judge Hipler himself will hear the motion to remove Judge Hipler. That's how it usually works, and it's worth sitting with for a second. The hearing is set for 1.30 Mountain Time by video. If he denies the motion, he keeps the case, and he will be the one deciding whether Koberger's petition goes anywhere. If he steps aside, a new judge would take over, and the whole post-conviction case would start over in front of someone who never heard the victim's family speak. Now let me give you the defense's best case, because there is one. Guilty pleas are not sacred just because they're spoken in court. Plea deals made under the threat of execution put enormous pressure on defendants. The law recognizes that a defendant can sometimes undo a plea if his lawyers failed him badly enough, and if he can show that, but for their mistakes, he would have gone to trial.

7:20 That last part comes from a 1985 Supreme Court case called Hill v. Lockhart. It's not enough to show your lawyers made mistakes. You have to show that if they hadn't, you would have rejected the deal and taken your chances at trial. In Koberger's case, that trial would have carried the possibility of a death sentence. There have been real cases where people pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit. And Brent Turvey, a forensic expert who once worked for the defense, told Fox News that questions about hair evidence in this case mean Koberger's original lawyers should have to answer questions under oath. Those lawyers have accused Turvey of breaking a confidentiality agreement, which he denies. If you believe in the system, the defense would say, you should want those questions answered by a judge nobody can accuse of having already made up his mind. And here is the prosecution's best case. Koberger was represented by one of the few lawyers in Idaho certified to handle death penalty cases.

8:22 The judge questioned him directly before accepting the plea, and he admitted the murders count by count. The DNA evidence was never retracted, and the standard to undo a plea after the fact exists precisely because otherwise, every defendant who later regrets a deal could demand a do-over, and every victim's family would live with the possibility forever. Which brings us back to those families. When Koberger filed his petition, the Goncalves family called him, quote, a guilty man once again claiming he is innocent. Kaylee's mother has said she wasn't surprised. These are the same families who were told 15 months ago that it was over. Here's where I land.

9:04 I don't think the law should make it impossible to undo a guilty plea. Wrongful convictions are real, but the bar has to be high, and in this case, the petition is built almost entirely on Koberger's own word. The word of a man who has now given a court two completely opposite accounts. And as for the judge, if harsh words at sentencing were enough to remove a judge, the most honest judges would be the ones who couldn't hear the follow-up. I don't think that's the rule anyone actually wants. We'll have the results of Thursday's hearing for you on Friday. And whatever happens with the judge, Koberger's new lawyers face a deadline next month to file their full amended petitions. Someone has to say their names. When we come back, Russell Brand's trial begins in London, and what you need to know about how we're going to cover it. This morning at Southwark Crown Court in London, the criminal trial of Russell Brand is scheduled to begin.

10:11 Brand is 51. You probably know him as a comedian, the star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. And in recent years, a podcaster and online personality now based in the United States. He faces seven charges, three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women, and the alleged offenses span a decade, from 1999 to 2009. Brand denies all of the charges. He has pleaded not guilty to every count. When the first charges were filed last year, he said publicly that he had been a fool, a drug addict, and a sex addict in his younger days, but that he had never been a rapist and had never engaged in non-consensual activity. The investigation began after a joint report by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 in 2023.

11:04 He was charged in April of 2025, and two more charges, involving two more women, were added that December. The trial was moved from June to today, and it's expected to last around 10 weeks. which would take us close to Christmas. Last week, the court held two days of legal arguments behind the scenes to prepare. Here's what to expect, because if you're used to American trials, this will look different. There are no cameras in a British criminal courtroom, so you won't see testimony. Everything we report will come from the journalists in the room. The first step is choosing and swearing in a jury of 12. Then the prosecution, which in England is the Crown Prosecution Service, opens its case to the jury. Women who testify may be allowed to do so behind a screen or by video, which is common in cases like this. And at the end, if a jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict after a certain amount of time, a judge can allow a majority verdict 10 to 2 or 11 to 1. Now, how we're going to cover it, and I want to be upfront about this. Under British law, the women who made these complaints are entitled to anonymity for the rest of their lives. That is not a guideline. It's the law.

12:15 And identifying them, even indirectly, is a crime. So we will never name them or give details that could identify them. And while the jury is hearing the case, British contempt of court law strictly limits commentary that could affect a fair trial. So for the next 10 weeks, I'm going to tell you what happens in that courtroom. what the prosecution says, what the defense puts to the witnesses, and what the witnesses say. Every time, I'll remind you that Brand denies all the charges. What I won't do is tell you how I think it's going. I'm saving my opinion for after the verdict. And when that day comes, I promise I'll give it to you straight. We'll be following this trial every day there's real news, starting with the prosecution's opening statement. When we come back, a guilty verdict in Tennessee that doesn't quite add up the way you might expect. As I told you at the top on Thursday afternoon, a jury in Clarksville, Tennessee, reached its verdict in the trial of Matthew Conan, a former Nashville paramedic.

13:27 He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of his wife, Rachel Conan, and her father, David Rogers, in January of 2021. Quick recap. Rachel, 30, was shot once in the back in a hallway. Her father, 62, was found in the dining room with a fractured skull. Matthew Conan, who was in the middle of divorcing Rachel after an affair, told 911 that his father-in-law had shot Rachel and that he had beaten Rogers with the gun to stop him. Prosecutors said Conan shot Rachel himself then killed her father and that his motive was money and the life he wanted with the woman he later married. In closing arguments, prosecutors told the jury Conan had the motive, the opportunity, and a pattern of inconsistent statements. The defense told jurors that Conan's fingerprints were not found on the trigger or the grip of the gun, that the DNA on the weapon was inconclusive, and that he did not have to prove he acted in self-defense. The state had to prove he didn't. The jury deliberated for less than five hours. On David Rogers' death, they found Conan guilty of first-degree murder. They rejected his claim of self-defense. On Rachel Conan's death, they did not convict him of murder.

14:42 They found him guilty of criminally negligent homicide. In Tennessee, that is the lowest form of homicide, a felony that carries one to six years in prison. So how does that happen? Same night, same house. Minutes apart, murder for one, negligence for the other. I'm not going to guess what was in these jurors' minds. They haven't spoken publicly, and speculating about what a jury was thinking is a game I don't play. But I can tell you what the verdict means legally. Criminally negligent homicide means the jury found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Matthew Conan's conduct caused Rachel's death. They did not accept that her father shot her. But they were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that her killing was intentional and premeditated, which is what first-degree murder requires.

15:32 And juries in Tennessee are allowed to convict on a lesser offense when they find the elements of that offense proven, but not the greater one. On David Rogers, they went all the way. They found that Conan killed him with premeditation and that he was not acting in self-defense. The prosecution can call this a full victory. the jury rejected the defense's story completely. Neither man walks away from that house as anything but the person responsible. The defense can point out that on the more serious allegation, the shooting of his wife, the jury did not find murder. What happens next? Conan's bond was revoked and he was taken into custody in the courtroom. Sentencing is set for January 13th.

16:16 First degree murder in Tennessee carries a life sentence. He can appeal. And one more thing worth noting, prosecutors dropped this case once in 2023, saying they couldn't yet disprove his account. They brought it back two years later, and a jury rejected that account. Sometimes waiting is how a case gets solved. Rachel Conan was 30, a mother of four. David Rogers was 62, a father and grandfather. Someone has to say their names. That's the show for this Monday. Here's my question for the Spotify crowd. Should a judge who called a defendant the worst of the worst at sentencing be allowed to decide whether that defendant's guilty plea stands?

16:59 If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment and tell me why. If you know someone who follows the Idaho case, send them this episode. Word of mouth is still the best way this show grows. And if you're on Apple Podcasts, there's a button at the top of your screen that says, listen uninterrupted. It's $ 5 a month for this show and thousands of other Calaroga media shows, with no ads, and your first 30 days are free. To everyone already subscribed, thank you, truly. Coming up this week, on Thursday afternoon, Brian Koberger's lawyers ask Judge Hipler to step aside, and we'll have that on Friday. Russell Brand's trial continues every day in London, and on Thursday, a special episode. The whole Krista Pike story from a January night in 1995 to a hospital bed in Nashville. One episode, start to finish.

17:52 I'm Garrett Fisher. Do better. This episode of Daily Crime and Justice is produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and is intended for news and commentary purposes only. It is not legal advice. Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denies all of the allegations against him. Brian Koberger and Matthew Conan have been convicted. Koberger's claims of innocence and ineffective counsel are allegations in his petition and have not been tested in court. Correction. Friday's episode said the Conan jury could receive the case at any time.

18:33 The jury had already returned its verdict on Thursday, October 8. On Brian Koberger, details of the October 7th prosecution filing were first reported by the Daily Mail, which obtained the document, and have been confirmed by other outlets including Fox News and People. Quotations from Koberger's petition are as reported by NBC News. Some reports have described other developments, including statements attributed to Koberger's family, that we have not independently confirmed and did not include. On Russell Brand, this episode was prepared before proceedings began on Monday and does not reflect anything said in court today. Under the Sexual Offenses Amendment Act 1992, complainants in sexual offense cases in the United Kingdom are entitled to lifelong anonymity. Our coverage will not include any information that could identify them. On Matthew Conan, reports differ on the length of jury deliberations. Most report less than five hours. Penalty ranges are as reported by WKRN and other Tennessee outlets. If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, you can call RAINN at 800-656-4673. In England and Wales, you can reach Rape Crisis at 0123.