This is the Hidden Killers podcast with Tony Bruske and continuing coverage of the case against Brian

Coburger. As the Brian Cobber trial inches closer to opening arguments, the defense strategy is starting to come into focus.

And honestly, it's looking less like a roadmap to acquittal and more like a scramble to soften the blow of a guilty verdict.

With Judge Hippler slamming the door shut on third-party culprit theory and firmly denying yet another attempt to delay the trial,

Koberger's team is running out of lanes and fast.

So now they're reaching backwards, way back, all the way to Pennsylvania,

calling in everyone from a former high school advisor to a jail guard who supervised

Coburgers post arrest, the goal?

Is it to prove innocence or is it to humanize him?

To paint a picture of a guy who was once awkward, misunderstood, and maybe even sympathetic.

Before things went very, very dark, allegedly.

But let's be real.

Calling someone like a corrections officer as a character witness isn't exactly standard

playbook material.

It's kind of a Hail Mary.

And if those witnesses show up uncooperative or worse, hostile, the whole strategy

could blow up in their faces.

There's a lot of these witnesses who are fighting to not have to show up and testify.

Then there's a motion to introduce alternate suspects, completely denied.

The judge called it speculative, unsupportive, and not backed by a shred of admissible evidence.

So what was the play there?

Was it an actual legal maneuver or just more noise designed to plant doubt in the public or a future jury pool?

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