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Victim's Father Says Family "Glad to be Moving On"; Families of Idaho Murder Victims Addressed Killer Before Sentencing; Judge Sentences Idaho Student Killer to Life in Prison; Gabbard Pushes Obama Conspiracy as Epstein Case Roils Administration. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 23, 2025 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:00:04]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: The final legal chapter in the tragic, just horrific murders of four University of Idaho students has now come to an end. A judge just sentenced the killer, Bryan Kohberger, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In fact, four consecutive life imprisonment sentences after the victims' loved ones gave heart- wrenching, powerful impact statements in court. Some family members spoke to reporters just after the hearing, saying they could try to move on from this horrific nightmare.

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STEVE GONCALVES, FATHER OF KAYLEE GONCALVES: Today's the end of a long, hard-fought battle, but we have our person, and we have him where he belongs. So, for that, we are thankful for all the men and women that put the work together, put this case together, and once it's part of the court system, it was a little ugly, but we got that conviction, and we're glad to be moving on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: CNN's Veronica Miracle has been following this case very closely and joins us live from outside of the courthouse.

Veronica, this was an emotional day that we witnessed in court.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it's been more than two and a half years in the making. It's the conclusion of a horrific case, and you saw it on the faces of every single person that was in that courtroom, including the judge, including the prosecutor's team.

And as family members came out of the courtroom, as we just heard from Steve Goncalves there, we asked them, I specifically asked Steve Goncalves, the father of Kaylee Goncalves, now that the gag order is lifted, is there anything that you've learned that you can tell us that you weren't allowed to tell us before, that you can tell the public? And he said that the prosecutor's team sat down with them, the

investigators, they sat down with their family and revealed very gruesome details about the crime. He said that he wasn't going to go too far into those details, but he did say that Kaylee was stabbed 34 times, that she was hit in the face, struck in the face multiple times, she was brutalized, and that they believed that possibly there was a second weapon. That's what the Goncalves family believed, that there could have been a second weapon.

Now, there is another press conference happening inside right now with the investigators, the prosecutor's team, all of the different officials who were part of bringing this case to a conclusion. And we asked, was there a second weapon?

They said they don't believe there was a second weapon. They also talked about finding that first weapon, the KA-BAR knife. They went everywhere. They did soil samplings. They tested the ground. They searched in the water. They could not find anything. They went everywhere they believed that Bryan Kohberger had been, based on cell phone towers and all of the information that they had. They could not find anything. They also could not find any clothing covered in blood. That was never recovered.

Now, in court, it was incredibly emotional. Family member after family member got to say their piece, got to look Bryan Kohberger in the face and tell them exactly what he did to their families. And there was some anger, some rage from some of those family members. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GONCALVES: Today, you've lost control. Today, we are here to prove to the world that you picked the wrong families, the wrong state, the wrong police officers, the wrong community. You tried to break our community apart. You tried to plant fear. You tried to divide us. You failed. Instead, your actions have united everyone, and they're disgust for you.

RANDY DAVIS, STEPFATHER OF XANA KERNODLE: You're going to go to hell. I know people believe in other stuff. You're evil. There's no place for you in heaven. You took our children. You are going to suffer, man.

KRISTI GONCALVES, KAYLEE GONCALVES' MOTHER: A dead killer doesn't kill again. So, while I'm disappointed the firing shot won't get to take their shots at you, I'm confident that the men in prison will have their way with you in more ways than one. You will finally get what you wanted, physical touch.

ALIVEA GONCALVES, OLDER SISTER OF VICTIM KAYLEE GONCALVES: You want the truth? Here's the one you'll hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your (expletive) ass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: Really, really, really heavy emotion in there all throughout the day.

[15:05:00]

And it wasn't just the victim's families that really went after him. The judge called him a faceless coward and said it was due to his incompetence because he slid through the door that this all happened. And he's now before the world unmasked, but he also talked about wanting to bring an end to Kohberger's 15 minutes of fame. So, a lot happened here today, but this case is now over. Jim, Brianna.

SCIUTTO: Listen, some real, real anger there. One of the family members saying, in effect, hope that he's attacked in prison, right? I mean, in their position, one can certainly understand the emotion and the anger. Veronica Miracle, thanks so much.

Well, moments ago, after we heard from the families, we heard from some of the authorities involved, including the police chief from Moscow, Idaho. And he spoke about this particular detail here that they believe that there was a reason the house where the victims lived was chosen. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Suggested that there was a reason that this particular house was chosen. What that reason is, we don't know. We don't know who the target was, and we're not going to speculate on that up here today. But we can tell you that for whatever reason, Mr. Kohberger chose that residence. Perhaps it's the location, layout, we don't know. But that's to the best of my knowledge. That's what that statement likely led to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining us now to discuss, legal analyst, trial attorney Mercedes Colwin. Also, James Alan Fox, criminologist at Northeastern University, author of the book "Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder."

And Mercedes, maybe I could begin with you. Justice is really a hundred percent satisfying. And listen, if any of us lost a loved one, you're never going to be relieved of that pain. But given the questions and the immediate aftermath of this murder, of course, it wasn't clear at the time that they would find the killer, right? It took them some time to do so. And there were some delays in the trial. There were frustrations from the families.

But we've arrived at a - the murderer who has admitted this crime and now he's going to go away for the rest of his life. In your time following cases perhaps similar to this, is that a satisfying end, at least? Does that represent justice to you?

MERCEDES COLWIN, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, it's so frustrating because you can imagine - I mean, here's been two and a half years, nearly three years since the murders happened in November of 2022. And in that period of time and you heard the frustration from the prosecutor, there were motions upon motion to dismiss the case, to get evidence actually suppressed, to say that Kohberger wasn't the killer, that there were these other individuals, that was the last and final straw, which then compelled the defense team to go and approach the prosecutors. According to Murphy, he said that that was the first time that the defense had actually approached him about doing a plea deal, because up until then, for two and a half years, there had been extensive and exhaustive motion practice signaling to the court that Kohberger was absolutely innocent. He's factually innocent as if they represented to the court. And that level of frustration built up into the families. And also, the frustrations built into Murphy himself, the DA, the lead DA in the press conference talked about that frustration because it wasn't until that call - in that call two and a half years in was there ever a plea deal discussed between the - obviously the defense team and the prosecution.

But up until then, there had been the - that Kohberger was innocent and we know that he was not. He tests - he said - made clear statements that he committed these crimes. He slaughtered these four kids and he did so. He didn't explain why, but he accepted and acknowledged that he was, in fact, the murderer.

KEILAR: And Mercedes, you know, as you were listening to some of these victim impact statements, not many people, as they listened to Kaylee Goncalves, a sister, have experienced that kind of loss. You are someone who has - you lost your sister who was in a violent relationship, her life snuffed out by someone else. And I just - I wonder what you thought, you know, professionally, personally listening to that statement.

COLWIN: Brianna, I had to take a deep breath. It was - I have to be honest with you, I cried, I did. I listened to the entire hearing. I cried because I know what it feels like to lose a loved one and I know what it feels like to live - to lose a loved one in a violent relationship. Obviously, there was no relationship between any of these four students and their murderer who slaughtered them in the middle of the night, Kohberger.

Yes, but there isn't - AND it goes back to what Jim said, do you really have satisfaction? No, because at the end of the day, you don't know why.

[15:10:02]

And even if we knew why, does it really matter? And that's what the judge was saying prior to sentencing Kohberger to the four consecutive years of life of imprisonment. It doesn't really - I mean, does it really matter? Does it matter if Kohberger or who took my sister's life away to explain what happened? No, it really doesn't. And I hope that over time there was - that they will come to terms of what happened to their children and have peace.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I mean, this is the why. They're not going to accept the why, right? There's any sort of justification for it?

Speaking to you, James, given your work in criminology, the family's made a deliberate effort here, several family members to take power and really a pedestal away from Kohberger, right? To say you're inconsequential. You don't mean anything here. You your name doesn't mean anything. You know, whatever sort of notoriety you might expect to get from this, you're not going to get it. A deliberate effort to deny him that.

And I wonder, given what you know about the minds, perhaps, in - of criminals like this, how impactful that might be for him sitting in that courtroom, blankly staring back at them.

JAMES ALAN FOX, CRIMINOLOGY, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY: Well, actually, the notoriety is being denied in the future. I mean, had this - had there been a trial, had there been appeals, had there been a death sentence and leading up to death sentence, the perpetrator gets lots of attention in the news. So, the good thing about this plea deal is we won't hear from him again. No appeals. So that's a good thing.

As far as the families, I don't believe that this would have had any impact on Kohberger. Yes, I know there are some cases I've been through where the defending - when hearing the family's weeps or shows remorse, Kohberger show no reaction, no facial reaction, no tears. And he had the opportunity to speak and said nothing. He had a stage or platform. He said nothing. He certainly had the opportunity to express remorse, but didn't have any.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: And James, I think the question might be, is he saving it, right? The judge alluded to that. Is there going to be a book? Is there going to be a movie? He can't profit off of it. But that may not be his only motive. If he does want to speak out, he may have that right. Do you think that we will hear from him again? Is that a possibility? And what would the effects of that be?

FOX: Oh, it's a possibility. I've known cases where imprisoned murderers have written letters to the media and those letters have been printed. Sure, they didn't make any money out of it, but they got some satisfaction of making a statement. I don't think that's going to happen with him. Again, he had a chance today and he had plenty of opportunity to plan to make a statement after having pled guilty, but he said nothing. So, I don't think he will, frankly. And I hope he won't.

SCIUTTO: Mercedes, what's tomorrow like for these families, right? They go home. This process that has taken up a big portion of their lives for the last two and a half years, court appearances, witness statements, et cetera. What does tomorrow look like in the next day?

COLWIN: Well, I certainly hope that they will focus on their lives. I mean, it's obviously extremely hard to do so, but focus on the memories of their loved ones. Focus on the great times. And you heard some of that come out during these witness impact statements, certainly from the Kernodle family, who seem to really rely very deeply on their faith and have been able to move past the hatred and the hatred that they have towards him and have forgiven him. In fact, it was Xana Kernodle's aunt that said she forgave him and she would be a willing ear if Kohberger ever wants to talk about why he did this because she has a lot of questions she'd like answered. So, there are - there's - there are pathways. I mean, for me, it was

my faith. It sounds like the Kernodles, it was their faith. Hopefully for the rest of the families that they will be able to move past this and focus on their loved ones that remain behind. So obviously, Maddie Mogen's family, I don't know how you get over losing your only child, but I'm sure they are surrounded by loving members and loving family members and loving friends.

With the others, they have living children that they can focus their energies on. So hopefully with time, time will heal all.

KEILAR: The enormity of that loss is going to be ...

FOX: (INAUDIBLE) ...

KEILAR: ... sorry, go on, James.

FOX: Sure. I often hear the word closure. Nothing brings closure. What the families really want is their child back, and that's not going to happen.

[15:15:04]

So yes, they may be able to move on. Some will be more successful than others, but there'll never be closure.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

COLWIN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I agree. I often hear that word. And it seems so simple and easy, right? But I can't imagine it's too real. Yes.

KEILAR: Yes. Those are holes that can't be filled.

FOX: (INAUDIBLE) situations - I've been in the same situation where there's been an execution, and the family of the victims comes out of the execution witness room, and they thought they'd get closure, but not. But they didn't.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: James, Mercedes, thank you so much for your insights. We really appreciate it.

And we are following some developments from the White House a short time ago. The DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, outlining claims of an alleged conspiracy by top Obama administration officials to manufacture the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, which is something that is just true and long-held, that Russia did interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

SCIUTTO: Republicans and Democrats said so quite publicly at the time. Well, yesterday, President Trump said former President Obama was guilty, quote, "of treasonous behavior." Today, DNI Gabbard did not go that far. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: When you look at the intent behind creating a fake manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent and what followed afterward can only be described as a years-long coup and a treasonous conspiracy against the American people, our republic, and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Today, she said she was referring that question now to the Justice Department to decide if there was evidence of that. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is at the White House.

So, Jeff, where does this go from here and shall we expect the Justice Department to seriously consider criminal charges?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, it's difficult to rule anything out given the fact that here we are today near the end of July of 2025 talking about this intelligence report back from 2016. This is the latest example of this White House trying to deflect and distract from the questions that are really - that remain unanswered and are quite frustrating to many of the President's own supporters about the Jeffrey Epstein matter. But today at the White House briefing, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, right there, was talking about this report about the 2016 intelligence suggesting that Russia favored Donald Trump to win that election.

But she misstated a couple of things in terms of, one, simply, she said that the variety of reports disagreed with this. But you'll remember the Republican report from the Senate, which Marco Rubio, then, of course, a Florida Republican senator, now the Secretary of State, one of the president's top advisors, he also concluded with that assessment at the time. So, it was hardly a one-sided assessment.

So, what is happening now, the bottom line to all of this, is the President yesterday decided to suddenly try and change the subject after unsuccessfully trying to do so for several days. And that's where we are left here. So, it's uncertain if the attorney general will actually investigate if the former president, Barack Obama, was guilty of a treasonous behavior.

The spokesperson for the former president yesterday called this bizarre and ridiculous. They normally don't comment on things that the Trump administration is saying or doing, but they said this was one example of where they thought they had to say that it simply is bizarre and ridiculous in their words.

So, look, the bottom line to all of this is the Justice Department certainly has enough on their plate with the questions about Jeffrey Epstein. It's unclear if they will also go ahead and investigate this, never mind the fact that the statute of limitations also may have run, given that it's almost one decade since then. KEILAR: Yes. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much.

I want to bring in CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

We should also note, Andy, that the president was asked about Jeffrey Epstein the other day, and this is the direction he went. He immediately tried to talk about, you know, the Russia hoax, as he calls it, Hillary Clinton. He's clearly trying to distract from the Epstein issue, which continues to dog him. We know that.

So, with that in mind, just taking a look at this, because it is important as he pushes and his administration pushes these kinds of things, to take a look at what Gabbard is saying here.

[15:20:04]

Sorry, Andy, can you just fact check what she's saying for us? Can you take a look at what she's saying and tell us what you think?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes. Yes, sure. Sorry about that. I thought you were going to play another piece of her comments.

KEILAR: Yes, that makes sense. It did sound that way.

MCCABE: So, it's really - Brianna, it's really hard to try to sort through the confusion that seems to be surrounding the DNI's comments. But I will say my opinion at this point is what the DNI has conflated are two separate conclusions about levels of - about minds of investigation that were happening at the same time. So, to put it simply, we were deeply concerned about what the Russians were doing to target our election in 2016.

And ultimately, what we concluded is they did a lot of different things. And don't take my opinion for it. The Mueller report is sitting right there on the shelf behind me. You can get your own. It's about 400 pages. It begins with the conclusion that the Russians in a sweeping and systematic fashion interfered with the election. Some of the ways they did that was by sending undercovers here to the United States to travel around the country and find out what people thought.

They established the Internet Research Agency to create fake accounts on social media platforms and to try to influence Americans' sentiment about the election in that way. They performed a hack and dump campaign in which they targeted political institutions with their cyber operators, and they stole information from places like the DNC. They attempted to do it in the RNC as well. So, a lot of different lines of effort.

One of them was they actually targeted the state electoral infrastructure. So many states were the victims of malicious Russian cyber activity. They tried to sneak their way into these state electoral systems to understand what was going on. In a few states, they got into voter registration rolls, which was very concerning. But what they didn't get into were any of the machines that are necessary to change the results of the election. And here comes the confusion.

So, on that line of inquiry, there was a pretty clear consensus across the intelligence community that the Russians had not succeeded in trying to change the results of the election. That did not change our conclusion that they did many other things to influence the outcome of the election. So, Xi is trying to say that because we concluded they didn't actually have an impact on the vote tally, that that is somehow contradicting our overall conclusion that they made several efforts to try to impact the election.

SCIUTTO: I mean, there were ...

MCCABE: That's as near as I can go to figure out what she's talking about.

SCIUTTO: Andy, there were layers to this assessment at the time. First layer was Russia interfered in the election. No one contested that at the time or even today. And Tulsi Gabbard said that again. Yes, Russia meddled in the election. The - at the top level was the possibility that they might have attempted to interfere with voting, voting systems, which the intelligence assessments at the time never said that, never said there was evidence of that. But there was this middle thread, right, that was Russia interfering to benefit Donald Trump?

And as I remember, that assessment was based on more - a couple of things. One, human intelligence inside the Kremlin. And I know that House Intelligence Committee members at the time took issue with that, saying that was not conclusive enough and it was never at the confidence level that the other findings were. But there were other elements that led to that assessment, one of which was they stole DNC materials, emails, Hillary Clinton, Podesta, et cetera, and then released them at times that would benefit Donald Trump during the election campaign. One of those times was at the release of the Access Hollywood tape, right? Is that - now, intelligence assessments, as you know better than me, are such that they rarely say, we know this a hundred percent, but they use that as one piece of evidence to come to that conclusion that the preference was for Trump. Do I have that right?

MCCABE: Yes, that's a great summary. So basically, you're talking about the intelligence community assessment, which was the piece that was essentially requested by the president after the election. And it came to three conclusions. The first was, yes, they absolutely tried to sow chaos and undermine Americans' confidence in the election. That's number one. Number two, they definitely wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of getting elected. And the third conclusion was they affirmatively wanted to help Donald Trump's chances of winning the election.

Pretty much the first two, no one has argued about. The third one seems to be the one that still causes pain for Republicans on the Hill and the DNI. But nevertheless, it is an intelligence assessment.

[15:25:06]

If you dig into the sourcing, you could decide you have a different opinion. That doesn't mean that the original opinion was invalid or treasonous. Just means that was the opinion of the community at that time. I concur with that opinion. In my view, they had good reason to base that on. Almost everyone who has reviewed our work has come to that same conclusion.

You know, the Senate Intelligence Committee report, which you noted, the Mueller investigation, spent two years investigating it, came to the same conclusions, general conclusions. John Durham, who came back and investigated everything we do and brought no problems or complaints based upon that review. The House Intelligence Committee report, which has now been declassified, agrees in large part with what we determined, but of course, differs on that count.

So, the idea that she would use this discussion around sourcing and intensive Russians as some sort of springboard for charges against Barack Obama or John Brennan or Jim Comey or anyone else is absurd. And she either knows it's absurd and she's doing it anyway, or the Director of National Intelligence actually doesn't understand the nuances of intelligence, which should concern a lot of Americans.

KEILAR: Now, Andy, do stay with us. We're also tracking some news about a DOJ request to unseal grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein criminal investigation. And listen, this Epstein issue actually connected to this White House focus as well on Russia and its involvement in the 2020 election. We'll be right back.

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