POISON, CONFESSION & BONES: Three Killers, Three Verdicts, Zero Mercy

0:03 Callarogus Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter, and welcome to celebrity trials on this Wednesday, July ninth. Today we're bringing you three verdicts that show justice takes many forms, sometimes swift, sometimes delayed, and sometimes absolutely shocking. We've got an Australian suburban mom who thought she could commit the perfect murder with mushrooms, the Idaho killer who finally cracked after nearly three years, and a Colorado husband whose wife's bones just gave up his deadliest secret. Let me start with the story that's been gripping Australia for two years and just reached its stunning conclusion. Because, folks, what happened in a small town courtroom this week proves that sometimes the most diabolical crimes hide behind the most ordinary facades.

0:52 The mushroom murderer's reckoning picture this July twenty ninth, twenty twenty three. A cozy lunch in Leongata, Australia, population five thousand, eight hundred sixty nine. Aaron Patterson, a fifty year old suburban mother, invites her estranged husband's family over for what she claims is an important conversation about her health. She's made individual beef Wellington's a fancy touch for what should be a family meal. But here's the thing about Aaron Patterson. She ate from a different colored plate than everyone else that day, and by the end of the week, three of her four guests were dead. On Monday, July seventh, just two days ago, an Australian jury found Aaron Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. She deliberately laced those beef wellingtons with death cap mushrooms, the deadliest fungi known to humans. Let me paint you the picture of what prosecutors proved happened. That winter day, Patterson invited her former in laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both seventy, along with Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson sixty and her husband Ian sixty eight. Patterson's two children were conveniently sent to lunch in a movie with friends.

2:07 The evidence against Patterson was absolutely damning. In April twenty twenty three, three months before the deadly lunch, she bought a food dehydrator. Her phone pinged near locations where death cap mushrooms grew wild. She researched their locations on a citizen science website, and here's the smoking gun. After her guests were hospitalized, she dumped that dehydrator at a waste center. When investigators found it, it had her fingerprints all over it and contained remnants of death cap mushrooms. But the most chilling detail, Patterson told her guests she had cancer, a complete lie designed to ensure they'd show up for what she called an important family discussion. Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor, testified that Patterson seemed reluctant to let anyone help In the kitchen. She plated the food herself, making sure each guest got their individually prepared Wellington. Meanwhile, she ate from that different colored plate, insurance that she wouldn't accidentally poison herself. The victims started getting sick within hours, severe vomiting, diarrhea, organ failure, Don and Gale Patterson died within a week. Heather Wilkinson followed shortly after. Ian spent weeks in an induced coma, but survived to tell the story.

3:27 What makes this case so disturbing isn't just the method, it's the calculated planning. Patterson bought the murder weapon from a website three months in advance. She researched the locations of wild death caps. She fabricated a cancer diagnosis to get them to her house. She prepared individual servings so she could control who got what, and then she lied. She told police she'd never owned a dehydrator. She claimed she got sick too, though hospital workers testified she showed none of the symptoms her guests displayed. She even did a factory reset on her phone to delete the evidence. During the nine week trial, Patterson finally took the stand and admitted to some of her lies. She acknowledged the fake cancer story. She admitted to the dehydrator, but she claimed it was all a terrible accident that she'd mixed up store bought and foraged mushrooms in her pantry. The jury wasn't buying it. After six days of deliberation, they found her guilty on all counts. She faces life in prison when she sentenced later this month. Here's what bothers me most about this case. The complete absence of remorse.

4:32 Even after three innocent people died excruciating deaths, Patterson showed no emotion during the verdict, no apology to the families, no explanation for why she destroyed three lives and orphaned her own children. This wasn't a crime of passion, This wasn't a domestic dispute gone wrong. This was premeditated murder disguised as family hospitality. And it shows that sometimes the most dangerous predators are the ones serving you dinner. Now, let me take you from Australia to Idaho, where another calculated killer finally admitted what we all knew he'd done. Coberger's Confession, Part four, The Sudden Surrender for nine hundred sixty two days. That's two years, seven months, and twenty days.

5:18 Brian Coburger maintained his innocence in the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students. He hired expensive lawyers, he fought every motion, he prepared for a death penalty trial that would have cost taxpayers millions, and then, just weeks before jury selection, he walked into a boisey courtroom and shattered everything with two simple words, yes and guilty. This isn't just another plea deal, folks. This is the complete capitulation of a man who thought he could commit the perfect crime and get away with it. What we learned in that courtroom last week fills in the final pieces of one of the most horrific cases in modern American history. Let me take you through what Prosecutor Bill Thompson revealed when he outlined the state's evidence. For the first time, we got the complete timeline of how a criminology PhD student became a quadruple murderer. It started in July twenty twenty two, four months before the killings. Coburger's phone began pinging a cell tower near eleven twenty two King Road, where Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen Zonikernodle, and Ethan Chapin lived.

6:24 Between July and November, his phone connected to that area twenty three times, always between ten pm and four am, always during the hours when he could watch without being seen. This wasn't random. Coburger was stalking these students, studying their routines, planning their murders. He even had photos of one of the female victims on his phone, multiple photos that made it clear he was paying special attention to her. But here's the most damning evidence. In March twenty twenty two, eight months before the murders, Coburger bought a k bar knife on Amazon, the exact type of knife used to kill four innocent people in their sleep. November thirteenth, twenty twenty two, just after four a m. While his victims slept peacefully, Coburger drove eight miles from his apartment in Pullman, Washington, to Moscow, Idaho. He entered through the kitchen sliding door and went straight to work. The attack lasted about fifteen minutes.

7:22 Madison and Kaylee on the third floor first, then down to the second floor, where he killed Zana and Ethan. Fifteen minutes to destroy four young lives and shatter a community. He left behind the knife sheath on Madison's bed, his first and fatal mistake. That sheath contained his DNA, the evidence that would ultimately lead to his arrest six weeks later. But here's what's really eating at me the timing of this confession. Why did Brian Coburger suddenly decide to plead guilty after nine hundred sixty two days of fighting? The answer reveals everything wrong with our justice system. Last month, Judge Stephen Hipler denied Coburger's motion to present an alternate perpetrator defense. His lawyers wanted to point fingers at four other people, but the judge called their evidence rank speculation.

8:15 That ruling ended any hope Coburger had of beating these charges, so rather than face a jury with overwhelming evidence against him, he took the coward's way out, life in prison instead of the death penalty he deserved. The families got no closure, no explanation, no apology. Steve Goncalves, Cayley's father, tried to get prosecutors to amend the deal to require a full confession and the location of the murder weapon. Prosecutor said no, once a deal is accepted, it can't be changed. So Brian Coburger gets to take his secrets to the grave while four families are left with nothing but questions. We'll never know why he chose these specific victims. We'll never know if he knew them personally. We'll never know what motivated a criminology student to become the very monster he studied.

9:02 What we do know is this Coburger thought he was smarter than everyone else. He studied criminal behavior, learned about forensic evidence, and believed he could commit the perfect crime. But he made amateur mistakes that any first year student could have avoided. He left DNA, he drove his own car. He kept photos of his victims. Brian Coburger will be sentenced to four consecutive life sentences on July twenty third. He'll die in prison, which is what he deserves. But he'll never have to explain why he destroyed four innocent lives. And that's not justice, that's just legal convenience. When we come back, I'm going to tell you about a Colorado husband whose wife's bones just gave up the evidence that prosecutors needed to put him away for good. Because sometimes the dead do speak, and what they're saying will shock you.

10:01 Welcome back to Celebrity Trials. I'm Red Carter, and we're ending today with a story that proves sometimes justice takes years, but it eventually finds its way home. Barry Morphew thought he'd gotten away with the perfect murder. For five years, he maintained his innocence in the disappearance of his wife, Suzanne. He gave tearful interviews, He pleaded for her safe return. He even cast her ballot for Donald Trump in the twenty twenty election after she vanished. But on June twentieth of this year, Barry Morphew was indicted for first degree murder again, and this time prosecutors have evidence that ties him directly to his wife's death. Her bones. Let me take you back to Mother's Day. Twenty twenty, Suzanne Morpheu, a forty nine year old mother of two, disappeared from the family home near Salida, Colorado. Barry claimed she'd gone for a bike ride while he was out of town on a work trip. Her bike and helmet were found in separate locations, but Suzanne was gone. Barry Morpheu was first charged with her murder in twenty twenty one, but those charges were dismissed in twenty twenty two when prosecutors admitted they couldn't prove their case without a body. Barry's supporters claimed he was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct and false accusations. Then, on September twenty second, twenty twenty three, investigators searching for a different missing person made a discovery in a shallow grave near Moffatt, Colorado. They'd found Suzanne Morpheu,

11:32 forty miles from her home, her bones scattered and bleached by three years of exposure, but those bones held secrets that would destroy Barry Morpheu's carefully constructed lies. When the Elpaso County Coroner performed an autopsy, they found something extraordinary in Suzanne's femur. Traces of buttrphenol, a zapparone, and metatomidine. Combined. These chemicals create BAM, a powerful animal tranquilizer used to sedate wildlife. Here's what makes this evidence absolutely devastating for Barry Morphew. Investigators searched prescription records throughout Colorado and found that only one private citizen in the entire region had legal access to BAM between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty.

12:17 Only one person who could have obtained this rare controlled substance, Barry Morphew. Before moving to Colorado in twenty eighteen, Barry was a deer farmer in Indiana. He used BAM to sedate and transport deer on his farm. He'd admitted to investigators that he used the tranquilizer as recently as April twenty twenty, just one month before Suzanne disappeared, to tranquilize a deer on his Colorado property. When investigators searched the Morphew home after Suzanne's disappearance, they found a tranquilizer rifle in Barry's gun safe, along with new Dart brand tranquilizer darts. In the clothes dryer, they discovered the shorts Berry was wearing on May ninth, twenty twenty, the day before Suzanne was reported missing. And here's the smoking gun. Tucked in with those shorts was a needle cap for a tranquilizer dart.

13:11 But the evidence gets even more damning. The autopsy showed that Suzanne didn't die immediately after the BAM entered her system. Her body had time to start metabolizing the drugs, which means she was alive and conscious when Barry Morpheus sedated her. She knew what was happening to her. The prosecution's case doesn't stop with the tranquilizer. Barry's phone was turned off at two forty seven pm on May ninth, just minutes after he arrived home, where Suzanne sent her last electronic communication to anyone. His truck's infotainment system shows irregular gaps in recorded activities around the time of Suzanne's disappearance. And then there's the marriage itself. While Barry told police their relationship was the best, the truth was far different. Suzanne had been discussing divorce with friends. She was having what prosecutors call a secret affair with an acquaintance. On May sixth, just three days before she disappeared, Suzanne sent Barry a devastating text, I'm done. I could care less what you're up to and have been for years. We just need to figure this out civilly. Barry deleted that text chain, but investigators recovered it from his phone. The evidence suggests that when Barry came home on May ninth and found Suzanne planning to leave him, he sedated her with the animal tranquilizer, killed her, and disposed of her body in that remote Saguache County field. The lack of decomposition at the burial site suggests her body was moved there after being stored elsewhere, possibly frozen for months or even years.

14:45 Barry Morphew is now being held on three million dollar bond in Colorado, awaiting trial for a second time. His attorney maintains his innocence, claiming the government is letting their predetermined conclusion lead their investigation. But here's the thing about bones. They don't lie, they don't forget, and they don't let killers get away with murder even after five years. Suzanne Morphu's bones told the story her husband never wanted. Revealed they held the chemical signature of his weapon of choice. They proved he had unique access to the murder weapon. They showed she suffered before she died. Most importantly, they proved that sometimes justice is patient, but it's also inevitable.

15:29 Justice isn't always fast, but it's always riveting. What connects these three cases, Aaron Patterson in Australia, Brian Cooberger in Idaho, and Barry Morphew in Colorado is the illusion of the perfect crime. Each killer thought they were smarter than the system. Each believed they could manipulate evidence, control narratives, and escape consequences. They were all wrong. Aaron Patterson thought serving poisonous mushrooms would look like an accident, but she left a digital train of research, purchases and lies that led straight to a murder conviction. Brian Cooberger thought his criminology background would help him commit an undetectable crime, but he made amateur mistakes that any textbook could have warned him against. Barry Morphew thought disposing of his wife's body would eliminate the evidence, but her bones held the chemical fingerprint of his guilt.

16:23 These cases remind us that modern forensics, digital evidence, and good old fashioned detective work can solve even the most carefully planned murders. The truth has a way of surfacing, whether it's in a dehydrator full of mushroom remnants, DNA on a knife sheath, or animal tranquilizer in ancient bones. Tomorrow we'll dive deeper into the psychology of family annihilators and what drives seemingly ordinary people to commit extraordinary evil. That's celebrity Trials for today. I'm read Carter. Remember justice isn't always fast, but it's always riveting, and sometimes the dead really do have the last word. See you tomorrow.